Fayetteville Weekend - QC83-01

August 1, 2008 (Fri) Home to Fayetteville, NY (299/299 miles) - We're off to see our grandson (and his parents) in their new home. We got off at 9:05 (77° clear) and headed north on the Garden State Parkway. It was a relatively uneventful drive even in the normally heavy traffic areas around New York City. We did make an adventure our of finding a place to eat lunch - such as it was. We got off US17 in Monticello, NY and found a KFC a mile or so up the road. But they weren't serving the spicy chicken that we remembered they had. We chose not to make the regular fried chicken spicy with the packaged hot sauce and went on to a Burger King where they didn't have spicy chicken on the menu either - not a big area for spicy foods, I guess. So we walked out of that fancy restaurant too. We ended up with a Wendy's spicy chicken wrap - one each instead two this time and we shared a large fries.

The house Dave and Jennifer are living in, a rental, is very small on a very small lot in the Syracuse, NY suburban community of Fayetteville. The neighborhood seems pleasant and , for the most part, quiet. And property, lawns and building are well maintained. In all, not a bad place to live. But it's small! They are in the process of finding a place to buy. Q found a place to settle on the front lawn - taking up half of it.

August 2, 2008 (Sat) Fayetteville, NY (2) - This morning Jennifer and Joy checked out the local quilt shop (of course) and the L.L. Bean outlet store while Dave, Shane and Mark hung out at home.

Fayetteville is on the Erie Canal which, in years past, was a busy commercial connection between Albany and Buffalo. This heritage is celebrated every year with The Canal Festival on the city hall grounds. It seemed like a fun thing to do so off we went. It began to rain soon after we got there! We scurried past the obligatory craft and food vending tents and took shelter in a tent housing a raptor display. It was interesting to see the owls and hawks up close and to learn a little about them. There were other displays which might have been interesting but for the rain.

This afternoon Shane and Jennifer baked a birthday cake (chocolate) for Joy and later Shane and Dave decorated it with white icing. Shane helped Joy blow out the candles after a delicious dinner that Dave barbecued outside - from under an umbrella. This evening, we watched two hours of the TV show "Wipe Out".

A fun day!

Q045057 Dave and Jennifer's front lawn (x2)
________________________________

August 3, 2008 (Sun) Fayetteville to Home (297/596 miles) - To round out a weekend of eating badly we ate bagels for breakfast and got under way at 10:30 (71° some blue sky). Fuel in New York is a lot more expensive than in New Jersey so we'd hoped that we could get back across the state line before needing to stop. We couldn't do it. We paid $40.30 for 10 gallons in Hancock then filled up in Paramus, NJ at $3.79/gal.

It was really strange traveling US17 again after so many years. It was the road we watched being "built" as we went back and forth between Alfred (college) or Elmira (first jobs) and Suffern where Joy grew up. We went through some very heavy rain before hitting NJ and the alway heavy, and frantic, traffic on the Garden State Parkway. An accident near exit 149 only added to the stress. We got home at about 6:30, unpacked and enjoyed a drink of scotch before going to bed early.

Q045354 Home