Before moving to South Africa, I spent much of my adulthood living and working in the Washington D.C. area. But growing up, I lived closer to Baltimore. My parents are both Baltimorians. I was raised on Baltimore sports.

Washington D.C. commuters love to complain about Metro. And the D.C. subway system does have its faults: rising fares, rush-hour delays, malfunctioning fare card machines, and surly station managers.

But I spent thousands of hours riding Metro in my day, and all in all I think it’s pretty great. It’s fast and convenient, and makes it possible to get around this city without a car. Plus, the Metro stations are beautiful. Especially on quiet, nearly empty Sunday evenings.

Dear Mom: This post is going to freak you out. Please read at your discretion. And please don’t write me out of your will. Love, Heather

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

My dad still lives in the house where my sister and I grew up. It’s in a quasi-rural part of Maryland, about an hour’s drive north of Washington D.C. and 40 minutes west of Baltimore. The house is at the top of a hill, at the end of a long driveway, in a tiny town called Gaither.

Yesterday was my grandmother’s memorial celebration, held on our family farm in Ellicott City, Maryland. It was also the day that Hurricane Irene hit America’s East Coast. (Ellicott City is a couple of hours from the coast so all we got were some downed trees and power outages. But still.)

Joe and I just got back from an epic road trip around South Africa: from Joburg, to Durban, to Port Shepstone, to Hogsback, to Port Elizabeth, to Joburg.

It was a fascinating, fun, and utterly exhausting trip. More than 3100 kilometers, R7500 in car repairs (!), and hundreds of photographs later, we’re back home.