It does not look like this in Tucson.

That's Lake Champlain, with the ice breaking up. In the middle foreground you can see a row of Adirondack chairs and a set of stair down to the beach. On the horizon is New York state. This is the view Eleanor and Emma had today, as they nursed their colds.

Out of mercy to them I am not posting a photo of what it looked like in Tucson today, but you can probably guess. Endless sunshine, dry air, cactus and hillside. I suppose it might get boring but just when it does a little bit of weather comes through.

I think any place would get monotonous to us, after the ever-changing scenery of travel, so if I have to pick a sort of monotony I will happily pick the sunny kind.

I am getting to know my way around this town better every day. Hunting for houses will do that to you. I am forced to cruise from neighborhood to neighborhood as I follow the GPS's directions. Already I find myself spotting handy shortcuts. Today's list of house "drive-bys" was seven addresses long.

As if this blog weren't enough, I accepted an offer from Gather.com to be a twice-monthly contributor on the subject of "travel with family." I'll be digging through my archives from the past 17 months of this blog to find some of the most relevant posts, and revising them specifically for the Gather audience. You can find those posts at http://travel.gather.com around the 10th and 24th of each month.