We finally arrived back home on Thursday the 16th after making a stop in Norway and New Gloucester to see our children and grandchildren before heading home. It lightened up the car load as we dropped off a container full of summer clothes and swimwear used by one family that stayed with us for a week in Cocoa Beach (2 boogie boards and a child seat included). It also included a big box of clothes from my sister that was dropped off to another daughter... thanks April and Mike. As clothes sizes change from grandchild to grandchild, they will get a lot of use. That is convenient when the grandchildren are 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 4 and 3 in age. What great family planning. Enough grandchildren around to prevent Grammie from thinking about moving to Florida.
Out trip covered 5695 miles and with gas prices lower this year we managed to save 4 cents per mile. We did manage to bring back home some additional weight equal to about 1 thousandths of a pound per mile over the 8 weeks that we were gone. We won't say if that was per person or per couple.
We did see both of Tom's sisters in the same final week on our trip back home. Visiting with them took up one week of the total trip. We got to see our son Doug in Columbia SC for about 4 hours which made Grammie's day.
Things that were good about the trip were seeing new places (Charleston SC especially) and old (not old but long established) friends. Together we spent more money on playing golf that we did on buying new new fabric and yarn. Grammie did find School House Fabrics in Floyd Virginia. She said that it was the best ever. Most golf courses don't cost that much (wink).
Things that we would change. Don't plan to see the Blue Ridge parkway in the Spring. We did drive through a section on our way back home but felt that it would not be as nearly beautiful as it will be in the Fall. We tried not to get tied up in planning way ahead to see specific things on certain days which worked out better for us but, when we tried to see friends along the way we realized that things in their lives sometimes change plans to connect and maybe longer planning is more necessary. In the case of long distance travel it means a long time before you see them again...or never seeing them again.
Our best unplanned event was seeing Mike Farrell playing the role of Norman Thayer Jr. in the production of On Golden Pond in Jacksonville Florida and our best planned event was to see a longtime friend of Alice's parents also in Jacksonville who will turn a centenarian on May 29th. Both wonderful opportunities we jumped at.
We did have several people ask us "When you coming down", meaning moving to Florida and we realized that for us, it will probably be never but, when you get sick of snow, there will continue to be the right time to get away from Maine for a bit. For us it is still what we look forward to, just to get in the van and go..and to all of those along the way who wished us a safe trip back home, thanks. We made it.
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