Pipe In Travel Status

Just a quick four-day trip to Jersey for a high school graduating senior's (wife's grandchild) dance recital. Lively family visiting and some down time roaming around, fun trip. I took along but one MM cob with Forever stem, and found two opportunities to smoke. The Marriot where we stayed had a well developed outdoor area with ash trays. Though a soaking rain fell all that day, there was plenty of overhang and cubby holes to light up. I just had Chatham Hall, but it was a welcome contemplative time. Later at the horse farm residence, on a sunny afternoon, I stood at the fence and enjoyed the horses and had a second bowl.
We checked out the nearby Wawa, a Jersey gas station and convenience store chain with highly developed snack, grocery, coffee, and food service, a real cross section of humanity. It was quite a scene, a Jersey tourist stop worth seeing. Picked up two coffees and two breakfast sandwiches for about six bucks. Lots of ciggies, chewing 'baccy, but no pipe tobacco at all. Asked for tobacco pipes at a local antique store; she said they have them now and then, but not that day.
And finally, asked around at hotel, Wawa, and other places. Postcards are a thing of the past. People text and send selfies. I still made one by hand out of a brochure and sent it to my sister, just for sport. Maybe I'll do that with index cards and supply the art in pen-and-ink.

mothernature ... oops, it's Chatham Manor, which is a PC match to Carter Hall. I carried it in a fold-up pouch that I was given by Jerry Perry, the pipe carver, at last year's TAPS pipe show. 'Have to use up the rest, about a bowl's worth. I just rolled the pipe nail and matches in the pouch. No problem with it in my backpack carry-on.

Since the postcard is so out in the text and selfie world, maybe it's best to do a full retro and get something like card stock that will take ink and do my own drawings, either representing the sights on my journey or anything else that crosses my mind, or do collages if I want to prep cards at home. I remember when every hotel and motel had a wire rack of postcards, even if they were sometimes a little dusty. At least the young desk clerk at our hotel knew what a postcard is -- finding someone who doesn't know is next. I think there is some push-back on devices and technology. It isn't going away, and I don't want it to. But young people are opting out of facebook now that their parents and grandparents are there, and people are rebelling by not responding to texts and tweets and such, instagram. I think people have tumbled to the fact that they are being very controlled and don't like it. The sociability and companionability aspect is becoming suspect, with the intrusive ads and scams.