QC61-06 And Finally Home

I suspect that at least some of you are wondering if we ever made it home. Well, we did and as the late Paul Harvey use to say, " and now for the rest of the story."

May 30, 2016 (Mon)  Indianapolis, IN to Westerville, OH (185/7032 miles 27.8mpg) ??/??° - We got up and took off early never thinking to look at the temperature. Nor did we when we arrived in Westerville thus the question marks for the temperature range for the day. It was clear though. We did notice that, and the relatively short trip was uneventful.

Almost 60 years ago Mark arrived, excited and a bit scared, at Bartlett Hall, a men's dorm on the Alfred University campus, to begin a new phase in his life as a college undergrad. Upon climbing the 4 flights of stairs to the only room on the 4th floor he was warmly greeted by Marvin, his new roommate. The elderly Marvin - he was 6 years older and a newly released Air Force vet - helped him with the transition to life on his own (more or less). Several years later he and Anne (his wife and a classmate of Joy's) happened to be living in East Liverpool, Ohio when Mark was released from the Army and took his first job there. Anne and Marvin not only helped our transition to civilian life but opened their home to us when our newly rented house wasn't quite ready for us to move into. And they later babysat our 2 year old son when our daughter was born. We lost contact with them after we moved from Ohio but when Marvin died a few years ago we got in touch with Anne and today we saw her again after 50 some years.

It was great to see her and to catch up on her (and Marvin's) doings over the years. She too is a quilter so there was plenty about that to talk about - as if there might be a lack of subject matter. Mark, their son whom we last saw as a toddler, and his wife graciously provided a delicious Memorial Day meal and their guest room for the night. Thank you Mark and family.

C010456 Triguba home, Westerville, OH

May 31, 2016 (Tue)  Westerville, OH to Home (552/7584 miles 34.5mpg) 80/??° - We said good-bye to Anne last night so that we could make an early start this morning. We had over 500 miles to go with the worst coming at the end (NY City area traffic) when we'd be the most tired. Nonetheless, Mark was up and had fixed coffee for our trip!

Our bed time last night was late, as you might imagine, making staying awake as we drove east on I-70 and I-76 (the Pennsylvania Turnpike) a challenge. But frequent change of driver kept us from serious incident. The drive itself was uneventful until we reached New Jersey. Almost as soon as we started up the Garden State Parkway we hit stop and go traffic. We should have expected it but we didn't. Fortunately, we didn't have all that far to go. We got home about 6:00 exhausted and glad to be safely back. 

The question was asked of us whether we preferred traveling by car (with motel accommodations) or motor home. It's hard to say. Each has its advantages. We'll have to take another trip and do more research.

C011008 Home

June 4, 2016 (Sat) - While not part of our trip west our sojourn to Suffern, NY and back today turned out to be worth mentioning. It was the occasion of Joy's 60th high school reunion. Since Suffern is less than 100 miles away, we debated whether to go up and back in one day or secure a motel room for the night - we've become quite experienced at that! We chose the one day option.

The reunion itself was great fun, Joy got to see some former classmates she hadn't seen for quite some time as well as some she sees on a fairly regular basis. The trip back that night was another story. We hadn't expected rain, there was no mention of it in the forecasts, but rain it did - and so heavy at times that our windshield wipers couldn't keep up. To make matters worse, the heaviest came as we negotiated the construction zone on the Garden State Parkway. The traffic was so heavy and exits so disrupted, to say nothing of an absence of shoulders, that pulling off the highway and waiting for the storm to pass was not an option. We had no choice but to keep going. Because of the construction the lane marking had not been renewed so were all but invisible. The only way to know our position on the road was to watch the cars on either side of us and the ones ahead. Verbal updates from the co-pilot were also a great help. Thankfully the speed was slow.

As the rain began to let up two cars roared past us going considerably faster then traffic and conditions would dictate, changing back and forth across the three south bound lanes and seemingly having a great old time making their way past the slower cars. Some time later we came upon an area where the three lanes diverged to allow for some construction. Some of the cones set up to direct traffic had been disturbed and the large electronic warning sign had been overturned. Police had just arrived to do their thing. We speculated that one of the cowboys had decided to whip across lanes at the wrong time, hitting the cones and warning flasher and gone on. We hit a mutilated cone lying in the middle of the road about a mile further on.

We found that drive home far more stressful than driving 7500 miles across the country and back.