Good morning, Hal, and a hearty welcome to the site! It's great to have you with us, and we think you'll find it productive as well as interesting and enjoyable.

To get the most out of us, you may want to take a few minutes to join several of our many groups which you might find of particular interest, such as California, Russia, France, China, New Zealand, Australia, Israel, Egypt, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Eating/Drinking the World, and plenty of others covering many topics and most destinations throughout the world (Antartica coming up soon!).

FYI, on your profile you'll see a blue bar marked "Text Box," which you can turn into a box containing not just text but also photos and even videos about yourself, your interests, your travels, your writing, and your outlets.

Finally, if you would, please be so kind as to spread the word among your travel-interested friends, family, and aqssociates. It's fast and easy to use our "INVITE" function above left on the navigation bar to enter e-mails (even your whole list at once!).

Many thanks for joining us, Hal; we wish you a great rest of 2009 and look forward to hearing more from you...!