My balloon ride in Orlando was canceled due to bad weather, but it seems like someone is enforcing that one-door-closes-another-opens rule: I was invited to check out Howard County in Maryland next week, zip-lining the first day and a balloon ride the next.

Yesterday at a luncheon in New York City a member of the Intercontinental Hotel team made a comment about how diverse Maryland is, how he so thoroughly enjoyed growing up there. Between the beaches, food (crab cakes), wilderness, waterfront (Annapolis, Chesapeake), and cities (Baltimore, D.C.), the state suddenly starts to no longer seem small.

The day after the Maryland trip I will fly out of Philadelphia to New Orleans for a long weekend of nightlife. I plan on going all out – I’ve always wanted to check out Louisiana – and someone told me that it’s not proper to go to bed before the sun comes up in The Big Easy.

Who am I to blow against the wind?

I haven’t had an all-night bender in a while, so this could get interesting. It’s a good thing I’ve come out of my no dancing phase – it’s all about the jazz bands down in the Bayou.

Later this week I head to Detroit, which will kick off this 11-day swing.