Today, I’m doing something all Americans have done, or think they should have. It’s that time of the summer.

That’s right, time for the family road-trip.

I am, for probably the last time, riding in a car with my parents and two of my sisters along I-80 going east. And as we pass through Cheyenne, western Nebraska, Lincoln, Omaha, Des Moines, the Quad Cities, and Chicago, I’ll be thinking about all the times we did it before.

Almost annually, we would venture east, to Michigan, where both my parents were born and raised. We’d head back and make the rounds to the homes of all relations still living there around Flint, MI.

I tell this not to be chastised for wasting gas and not to be envied for having the time. I merely endeavor to explain why new material will be absent or at best unlikely until August 8.