We left last Satursday and have been traveling almost a week now. Briefly here is what we’ve done…
On last Saturday we travelled from Austin to just north of Nashville TN. We listened to books on tape (for example, Leading with my Chin by Jay Leno) and the hours whizzed by. We started at about 5:20 AM and stopped at 5:30 PM. We switch driver every 300 miles. So in 12 hours of driving we completed about 850 miles (avg 70 mph). We stayed over at an inexpensive Motel 6 and had a decent BBQ dinner at Jack’s.
Our goal the next day, Sunday, was to get to Lexington KY to see my bro and sister-in-law, David and Linda. We started driving mid-morning and arrived mid-afternoon. It was an easy drive and we continued to listen to “Envy” by Sandra Brown which we had started the day before. We were so engrossed in the book that we overshot one of our turns by 30 miles. Luckily it was easily fixed. We went through Louisville, and then onto Lexington. We had a fun time talking, reminiscing, and catching-up with David and Linda. We stayed over at their lovely new home, although they had been there 5 years, it was new to us.
The next day, Monday, we went to Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill while David and Linda were at work. It was about a 45 minute drive south and we toured the site from late morning to early afternoon. This included a demonstration of Shaker music, a horse-drawn carriage ride, lunch, and many demonstrations of life during those times. Arriving back home we dressed for dinner and went to Diane and Greg’s home, their daughter and son-in-law, for drinks before dinner. Diane showed us their luxurious home. Dinner at Dudley’s was nice with good conversation and good food. We also picked up an oil painting that my mother had done of a sleeping nude. Something that had been offered by Dave and I had been planning to acquire for years, but was unable to because we didn’t want to ship it so having the car has been useful for that.
We woke early the next morning, Tuesday, packed the car with the painting in the back seat, said our goodbyes and headed off at 7 AM for Buffalo. Continuing the unabridged version of Envy our 10 hour drive went by quickly and we arrived at 4:30 PM having had one 45 minute delay (dead stop for gosh knows what) on the interstate. It was good to see Dad and Ruth. The Buffalo weather was cold and blustery, and I was underdressed in shorts and a t-shirt. Dinner was at home, and although all we did that day was sit and drive we crashed early and slept late.
We’re trying to keep our stay at Dad and Ruth’s quiet and unstressful so we sit and talk and do minor chores around the house. We hope that they comfortable with us being here since they are getting on in years. They live simply day-to-day, and from meal-to-meal, but that’s fine and they seem happy even though they are getting older and less agile. We woke late on Wednesday, had breakfast, talked, had lunch and when they napped we went to East Aurora to a cross-stitch shop. The evening was quiet with us watching TV (60 Minutes and American Idol) and chatting.
Thursday was again quiet at their home. Brian worked on a blind for the upstairs loft AKA art studio. He had previously tried to make a fancy pull-string mechanism to open and close it, but it had gotten jambed. So this time he undid the strings and simplified it to allow Dad to manually open and close it. The weather was glorious – sunny, dry and 65 degrees. Brian went to see the Parrots of Telegraph Hill in the afternoon and Kathy stayed home to read and stitch while Dad and Ruth napped. That evening Bert (he is married to Judy who is Ruth’s daughter) stopped by from Rochester while on a business trip. He looked good and we had a nice conversation about his sons and family. Again at 9:30 PM we all were exhausted and we headed for bed, although Kathy and I stayed up sleepily to watch some TV in our room.