Home? Yes and no.

See these people grinning along with Houston and me? These are some of my friends who still live in the DC area. They're a big part of the reason I keep making sure I get a visit to DC in as part of our America trips. No matter how long we stay in DC, no matter how many lunch dates and beer nights we shoehorn into each visit, we never, ever get to see everyone — and that always hurts. But even that hurt is proof of the friendships that persist across years and years, and miles and miles.

DC is always full, full, full of things to do. When we first got in, Houston had a gig in Baltimore, so we incorporated a visit to Fells Point. Here's the famous Bertha's:



And, to continue a theme:



We also spent a bit of time in the really, really pretty and way-historic town of Ellicott City, where I took this photo of Margaret:



In other running around, we also took in the always-fun Maryland Renaissance Festival, an event that has particular resonance for and relevance to Houston, who spent one season as one of their paid actors. ("You mean those...those are actors? Not...obliging medieval time-travellers?") Highlights for Margaret included jousting and elephant rides (she watched the jousting and rode the elephant):





One of the highlights for me (apart from the unlimited supply of greasy food) was the Scottish band Albannach. If you go to their website, you can listen (free!) to their music stream. They sound way cool on recordings, but they're electric in person. I need to drop an email on the site asking whether they'd consider a tour to Australia, because I'd sure like to hear them again. Here's the best photo I could get; they move around so much when they perform that the others were kind of blurry:



The music isn't exactly slavishly traditional; instead, they beef up the drumming and the physicality, and the whole thing just rocks. If you get a chance to see them live, I recommend doing so!

The question hovers: do I still consider DC to be my home? The short answer is, as long as I still have friends here, yes. And no. It's changed since I left. And I also have friends elsewhere — DC friends who have moved away, Australian friends, net buddies who live in the aether with me. What is home? What is location?