On my way home from picking up my boy on Friday night, I decided to stop by Brookstone at the Irvine Spectrum and bought a hard-shelled carry-on suitcase that just fits in airline overhead compartments. I’m not taking any chances of getting my luggage lost again for the duration of my trip. It also has a nice set of wheels on it, as well as a retractible handle so I should also be able to easily carry my CPAP machine too. Of course, I’m also going to take my cellphone with all of my powercords (I had to buy a power cord last year – which was almost impossible to do in Junction).  BTW, according the last U.S. Census (2000), Junction had a population of just over 2,600 people! Talk about SMALL! Even so, it was a great place to visit and I’m looking forward to it again this year. I’m hoping that, once I arrive, we’ll get some weather (last year, after my flight from Hell, I drove through an incredible rainstorm just to get there). I have no desire to do that again but, once I’m there, I really don’t care what happens – it would be GREAT to get a good thunderstorm or two, as well as some wind (which was in short supply last year). Of course, I’m going to carry my camera onboard with me this year – last year, I didn’t get many because it was lost with my luggage.

I’m also hoping to go down to the LLano River (which is located on the grounds) – last year, due to the huge storm that welcomed the retreat, we were told not to go down to the River due to flood water conditions.  One of my goals is to get a few photos of an armadillo or two (I’ve only seen dead stuffed ones which are so common in Mexico). Only time will tell.