Back home again in KY (not Indiana)

Trips take more and more out of me, I find, and the difficulty seems to be increasing exponentially.

Take our most recent trip for instance.

Alan and I went back to New Jersey. The purpose? I wanted to attend my 50th high school reunion, and I was determined to go with or without Alan, even if someone had to push me in on a gurney. Well, Alan went with me and if anyone was going to rolled in on a gurney, it was Alan.

We always have some "health" disaster when we travel, and really, that makes the trip all the more exciting, right? Wrong? We pray each time we go for protection while driving, and for health, and for rest. We praise God that we had no driving problems, unless you consider a 4-hour traffic delay on the Schuylkill a problem. The rains of Thursday morning (Sept. 8) in the Philadelphia and South Jersey area caused flooding which caused many roads to be closed which meant since the Schuylkill was high and dry all seven million drivers in the Philadelphia area on a Thursday afternoon (I made up the number) funneled onto the Expressway and I could have walked the distance from Valley Forge to Downtown almost as fast, assuming I had good knees, which I don't.

Finally...we arrived at the DoubleTree hotel in Mt. Laurel -- reunion headquarters -- after dinner time on Thursday evening. We didn't venture forth, because traffic was so bad, still, so we fasted that evening -- no food, in other words. The room/suite was lovely and the big bonus was that we had two TVs. Alan's and my taste in programming are as far apart as New Jersey is from one mile off the coast of New Jersey traveling West past China, Europe, etc. You get the picture?

I must also mention that our health disaster this time included another trip to another hospital and I took another picture to add to Alan's hospital album. Alan fainted or something right after breakfast. No one knows what happened, least of all Alan, but when the breakfast lady came rushing out into the lobby where I was sitting shouting to call 911, I knew Alan had done it again. Yes, he had.

When I entered the breakfast room he was on the floor, unconscious. I figured his blood pressure had dropped suddenly, and he would be fine, which is what happened, we think. He felt dizzy, decided to lay down on the floor, and while doing that he lost consciousness and hit his head on the table leg. He was infused with fluids and released to his family doctor after about 4 hours.


Friday I had a wonderful lunch with my cousin Joan. She prepared manicotta and several other dishes as well as several desserts and a wide range of appetizers. Joan is a terrific cook. I took several desserts back to the hotel for Alan, as well as a dish full of the main course foods, and he loved them, especially the cheese cake which he devoured while I attended the first evening's party. He wasn't supposed to eat the whole thing. I would have loved to have had a piece, and I should have known better. Put something sweet in front of my SWEETheart and it disappears very quickly.

I guess the highlight of the lunch besides the food was seeing each other again and getting to share a few things that we hadn't thought about for years. Joanie is a beautiful woman, both physically and spiritually.

The Friday evening party was a lot of fun and since I was on the scooter I was able to mingle freely without worrying whether I'd fall down or not be able to walk back to the room -- and not because I had imbibed too much, but because the knees wouldn't work right.

Saturday night's dinner dance was a hoot as well. And all those free breakfasts got us (my classmates and me) sharing more about our years in between June 1961 and September 2011.

After the reunion weekend -- I wish we could have stayed for Sunday, but couldn't -- we went on to Lancaster County, PA and stayed in a small cottage at one of the B&Bs in the county. I had been reading many books about the Amish and Lancaster County recently before I made the reservations for us to go there. the trip through the country lanes was especially enjoyable.

So, we're home. The trip home was good, except for some rain through Ohio, the weather was really nice. I'm really happy to be home again.

ttfn