7/8 down, maybe?

Dr. Kasamon forwarded me an email from Dr. Diaz where Dr. Diaz recommends 4 total cycles (which is 8 treatments) followed by maintenance of 5-FU and Avastin. I have no idea how long that lasts. Maybe forever. In my initial contact with Dr. Diaz I got the impression he prefers a whole year worth of treatment (including maintenance) before you can go on "holidays" of an indeterminate period of time. There's still a good bit of details to be worked out, it seems.

I'm in bed recovering from the chemo yesterday. It's not too bad this time, though I have a good headache, my stomach hurts, and I'm decently tired.

I just ordered a miter saw and circular saw from Amazon. There's a $20 rebate on each of them until the end of the month, sweet! That means I picked them both up for about $160 I think. I also ordered oil and air filters for Emily and my cars. What does Amazon not sell nowadays?

Emily and I had a very good spontaneous weekend. We made it out for the train ride, which was pretty entertaining. I have never been out that far west before. We got off in Frostburg and had a 1.5 hour layover where we walked up and down the rather short main street, then we ate/drank at a place called Mountain City Coffee House. The coffee was very good. I also had a hot panini consisting of tomato, cheese, and pesto I think. It was also good. Back on the train we went back to Cumberland.

It was supposed to be rainy all weekend but the weather held out miraculously for us. After we got back to Cumberland it was just starting to rain/sprinkle. We randomly called a bed and breakfast in Cumberland, the Bruce House Inn, and asked if they happened to have a room that night. Miraculously they did. They were booked up solid, but an old couple had to bail out a day early and they had a room (in fact, the room we would have wanted looking online) available. Very nice place. Though for some strange reason they had hardwood in the bathroom with a claw-foot tub that spewed water everywhere when you showered. Anyway, we then took a nap for a couple of hours.

After waking up we went to Rocky Gap State Park in search of some supposed bluegrass music being played out there. We never did find it. It was sprinkling a little bit at first, but we never saw any hint of people coming out. Oh well. Instead I just kept driving on a road and we found ourselves in PA and eventually in Buchannon State Forest, which was gorgeous. Then we went offroading down some forest fireroads that seemed okay to drive on. Coming up in this beautiful mountain gap before the forest I wanted a picture of it. But there wasn't anywhere good to get a picture. I jokingly commented that I wanted to go to this antenna field at the top of the mountain I could see. Well, after a couple of long fireroads low and behold I dead-ended at the antenna field. There was no good access to an edge to take a picture though.

Then we drove back into MD and went back out to Frostburg and ate at Guiseppe's Italian restaurant. Emily and I split an apettizer that was basically a caprese salad (mozzarella, tomato slices, olive oil, basil, oregano, etc.) and very good. We also split a pasta primavera with chicken, which was also very good (fresh veggies). Emily had eaten there a couple of times when she worked for DNR and drove all over the state. It was a good pick. Back to the BnB for some much needed rest. One thing I will say about Cumberland, it's clearly an old town that didn't plan for traffic. They have closed off a few blocks of the main thoroughfare and paved it over in European style as a pedestrian plaza with shops and stuff. That's fine and dandy except every road is one-way. It took about 30 minutes once we were back into Cumberland to finally correctly navigate the 5 blocks to the BnB. Luckily tensions didn't flare too badly ;)

The next day we were again spontaneous and decided to continue west basically to the edge of the state and go to Swallow Falls State Park. There's a 53 foot waterfall in this park, bigger than I have ever seen. Emily is not impressed by it though. It's also in the last remaining stead of Hemlock trees in the state of Maryland, 40-ish acres worth. We walked basically the whole trail. It was very nice and refreshing. Most of the trail is against these strange rocky outcrops on one side (it looks like it was blasted, but it could have been natural) and the other side is a river and falls. Being in a forest with water makes the air so nice.

After that we began the 3.5 hour journey home. (Maryland's not a very big state!). We stopped at the at the Lakeside Creamery right on Deep Creek (the largest body of water in Maryland, and like all bodies of water in Maryland man-made by a dam). I had a disgusting amount of "cinnamon bun" ice cream in a waffle cone, which was great. Then we continued our journey home.

Right near the intersection of I-68 and I-70 is a place called Sideling Hill, which is this huge gap in a mountain range with I-68 running through it. You can walk up the side to an observation deck and see all the layers of rock and the evidence of primordial streams and stuff. Pretty neat. Though I never did figure out if it was man made or not. Onward home...

About 10 miles into I-70 we hit traffic. I think we averaged about 15MPH for the next 50 or 60 miles, but eventually made it out barreled home. It seemed to clear up at about Hagerstown for some reason.

Once we finally got close to back, we took another detour and went to Columbia to eat some Chipotle fajita burritos. Mmmm, so worth it.

Now for some pictures Emily took and prepared for me (in mostly chronological order):

You can see I'm totally excited about our train ride!

These adorable kitty cats were in the window of a liquor store in Frostburg.

This is me being a typical American, sipping my mocha and playing on my new fancy-pants cell phone.

This was taken somewhere on our meandering drive into PA. I think it's on the MD side though. The haziness was the neatest part I thought.

This "stair case" was in Swallow Falls. It looks man-made, but maybe not!

This is a little falls (I think maybe called Livingston Falls) in Swallow Falls State Park. You could get right up to it and it was nicely sized so Emily got some good pictures.

This is a big old, dead, hollowed out tree. I'm stuck in it! Eek!