There are going to be a whole bunch of LJ entries coming, chronicling the trip. For once, I actually took a fair number of photos, so those will be heavily cut-tagged. I'm starting to assemble that now, but for anyone who is curious, a fair chunk of the story of the trip can be found (in reverse chronological order) in this Picasa album of cryptic pictures.
Anyway -- that's why I was semi-incommunicado for a couple of weeks, and why I've been heavily distracted for the past month. And the travelogue starts next...