'Hiking' SC Gov Returns From Buenos Aires

Mark Sanford is missing no more. The AWOL South Carolina governor surfaced early today at an Atlanta airport, saying he had just returned not from hiking the Appalachian Trail, but from cruising the Buenos Aires coastline, The State reports. As to why his staff said he was hiking, Sanford said he’d told them he might hike the AT, but later changed his mind. “I said ‘no’ I wanted to do something exotic.”

Sanford said he’d taken the trip to recharge after a bruising battle with the legislature over the stimulus. He’d originally planned to stay an extra day, until his chief of staff contacted him and told him about the media storm his disappearance had caused. “I don’t know how this thing got blown out of proportion,” he said. (More Mark Sanford stories.)