And Then There Were None

Linda and I got home late yesterday afternoon and were very glad, even though it landed us in the coldest weather we've experienced since March (it was 32 degrees when I drove her to dialysis this morning). We were tired and ready to be home. In fact, even though we spent 24 days on the road compared to last year's 31, we did wear down again by the final week. Maybe the next driving trip will be 17 days. Hmmm, I can think of places we could cover in 17 days. . .

Under other circumstances, we might have headed straight home once we crossed the Mississippi. That was last Thursday, and we could have been home in time for her regular Saturday dialysis in Cooperstown. But two important things kept us going. One was that I had gone to a ton of trouble to secure 6:30 AM chair times for her in Louisville on Friday and in Cincinnati on Saturday. The other was that I had done that in order to reprise the final three days of last year's trip. We knew how much fun that would be, and we didn't want to miss it.

I'm happy to report that our anniversary weekend was everything we expected, and then some. We spent Friday with my cousin Valerie, who lives in Mason, just north of Cincinnati. She worked in the Reds' front office from 1990-1994, was laid off during the strike, and doesn't care for the Reds any more. In honor of her birthday (three days earlier) and our anniversary (two days hence), or perhaps because Yom Kippur was about to start, Valerie served a wonderful array of Jewish-American delicacies: bagels with cream cheese and lox; corned beef, pastrami, and Kosher salami on rye; two kinds of herrings; three kinds of spreads; and more. We had all we could handle putting a dent in that on Friday, and took more with us for the long drive on Saturday.

I didn't even know Valerie until I got a note from her after my "Jeopardy!" appearance in 2008, wondering if we were first cousins. We are, and finally met at the tail end of last year's trip. She's a delight and a sweetheart, and groaned at so many of my puns that I was worried we'd have to call paramedics. A retired bookkeeper, she keeps extremely busy--doing terrific needlepoint designs; playing Mah Jongg; visiting her kids and grandkids (in Oklahoma and Pennsylvania), and serving as an official in the community theater. Our visit this year was longer than last year's by two or three hours, but it was still too short. We're going to find a way to spend a few days together sometime. Here's a photo of Valerie and me:

Thanks to the early dialysis on Saturday, we were able to make it to our weekend rendezvous with the Finkels in time for dinner. I've known Jan and Judy for more than a decade now, and they are very dear people to all who know them. They live in a beautiful house in the woods in the western corner of Maryland, and we went through West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia again to get there. Jan's father signed the deed on the place six days before Jan was born, and it was the family's summer retreat for decades until he retired from teaching. Now they're the only year-round residents on their road.

Our only time together on Saturday was a magnificent dinner during which Linda got to enjoy the raw oysters which she had been craving since we went to that restaurant last year. I had tempura coconut shrimp with an orange marmalade sauce, followed by blackened salmon with a honey lemon sauce, one of my best meals on the trip. Jan and Judy let us recover on our own after dinner, which we needed. On Sunday, our anniversary (and three days after theirs), we spent most of the day together. That included two more meals, one an encore of raw oysters for Linda. After the big meals in Maryland, I felt as if I had gained ten pounds, but according to the scales this morning, I gained just two pounds or so on this trip. Nice work!

The Sunday highlight was the 90-minute boat ride on Deep Creek Lake. It was a gorgeous afternoon, warm in the sun, a cool breeze, and sparkling blue waters. With Jan at the wheel, we toured a lake we shared with a lot of boaters, checking out the unnecessarily huge mansions, the dam and bridges, the party being thrown at a lakeside resort to celebrate a triathlon race held there on Saturday, and three spiders who had lurked in the canvas cover before taking the final boat ride of their lives. Here's a photo of us on the boat, followed by views of skipper Jan and Judy:

We counted down the days on the final week of the trip, finally reached one, and hied ourselves home. Every day on the way home was special, especially those last three. Thank you to all the people who hosted us, put us up and put up with us, to make this trip as terrific as last year's: Judy and Tom in Redgranite, WI; Mike and Mary Ellen in La Crosse, WI; Tim and Julie in Firestone, CO; Mike and Helen in Cheyenne, WY; Valerie in Cincinnati; and Jan and Judy in Oakland, MD. You are all special people and great fun to be with. We couldn't have done this without you--and we wouldn't have.