Does it surprise anyone that after going on the great overland trek last weekend that I now have a cold?

I've been pretty lucky the last few years as far as colds go. As a kid I was pretty much guaranteed to have 3-4 over the winter, and have one of them develop into bronchitis. Never really a flu sufferer, though, which is odd and hopefully will continue.

My last real serious illness that way was a lung infection from I think my freshman year (could have been sophomore year, I suppose). Got on a course of tetracyclene, which made me better and cleared my skin. I was also never told when to stop taking it, so I probably went a week longer than needed. Problem there being that taking tetracyclene can make you feel a little queasy, which made me think "hmm, I should stay on this stuff, I still don't feel 100%."

Anyway, the ride back was relatively uneventful. I got more sleep on the way back (due, no doubt, to not getting much sleep on the way down). Maryland did give a couple of rude surprises:

1. The Baltimore visitor's center/rest stop is pretty gross. Not as bad as the crack-smoking bathroom (also in Maryland, go figure), but definately not the place to stop. Hold it and wait for the Chesapeake House rest area.

2. Maryland has a toll booth up in the middle of 95 that's $4. Now I understand what C. W. McCall was singing about.

I really should be pro-toll, given that (a) it puts the cost of the roads directly on the users, and thus (b) should lessen the cost to the average person. But in reality, I can't escape the sense that, like the tolls on the Mass Pike, Maryland is using the tolls to suck cash out of weary travelers.

What else from the trip? Chapel Hill is nice, but I don't know if I'd have done well there (they wait listed me for law school). I had enough trouble navigating the part of campus I was on, never mind trying to get around the whole thing. There was a distinct lack of signage; BU, for its faults, has great signage.

So here I sit, trying to unstuff my nose, thinking about the next roughly 1500 mile van trip, which starts Friday with the object of getting to Detroit and back without putting the van in Lake Erie or having Ty Law give me a bag to take home.