As first days tend to be, this was our day to cover a lot of distance without a lot of stops. We drove ever northward through the day, stopping for lunch at a very uninspiring Bob Evans in Wytheville VA and for dinner at a slightly more inspiring Big Boy in Maysville KY.

Highlights for the day included lots of fall color, a nuclear power plant outside Charleston WV, and Maysville KY itself, a surprisingly cute Ohio River town we imagined our mothers would both like very much. We also stumbled onto some really cool radio station in Cincinnati that played everything from Big Band to 1930s jazz to pop standards.

Cincinnati itself looked worthy of exploration as well.

I fixed my own garbage disposal tonight. Yay for me.

Sorry. Sometimes the little things really excite me.

Is Mark Foley a slimy closet-case and a major-league hypocrite? Absolutely.

Is he a pedophile? Should he be branded a criminal? That depends.

As Joseph points out, the Congressional pages involved in this ongoing “scandal” were all above the legal age of consent in the majority of the United States. In the eyes of the law, at least, a man in his fifties who hits on a 17-year-old is a different thing entirely from one who hits on a 12-year-old. While Foley’s attraction to guys in their late teens may be a bit creepy or distasteful to some, not to mention rather undignified, it’s no more illegal than hitting on a 25-year-old secretary or a 60-year-old society matron, at least in most of the country.

Of course, the controversy is officially about the actual email and text messages rather than any specific sex act. Ironically, that may be Foley’s only actual crime. In the US, it is very much against the law to send “pornographic” messages to a 17-year-old. However, in most of the US, it is also quite legal to actually have sex with that same 17-year-old. There’s just something wrong with that logic.

Or is it just me?

Only four more days till the Great Midwestern Road Trip of 2006. Any suggestions of things to see along the way, particularly dumpy diners, vintage supermarkets and shopping centers, and relatively safe examples of urban decay are always appreciated. Our social calendar is already full, alas — or at least as full as misanthropes like us are ever likely to let it get.