So where have I been hiding out? Partly just summer loafing, some work on a project that might or might not surface publicly, and a family trip to the East Coast. We visited my wife's people on Long Island, then drove down the coast to visit my brothers' families near Williamsburg. While dealing with NYC and New Jersey Turnpike traffic didn't feel like much improvement on the airport hassles at the time, once we got down to the Delmarva area we deliberately went off the beaten path.
One of our discoveries was the Whitehaven Hotel, a historic 19th century establishment on Maryland's Eastern shore, refitted as a bed and breakfast. 
This place is far enough down the backroads that a two-car ferry departs just in front of the old hotel in place of a bridge across the tidewater. It was also fortuitously near a most excellent and well known (but not to us) crab joint, the Red Roost. Of course we indulged. To do otherwise would be foolish, if not downright heretical in that neighborhood. We ended in the area on a whim and a Google search, but we'll definitely return.
The finale of the trip was to be a stint of Mall crawling in DC, including the new Native American museum. But my wife sprained an ankle along the way, so that was put on hold for another trip and we substituted with a bit of battlefielding.