A man, a plan, a canal, Panama

I titled this with that old saw because I like palindromes, and because I just got a friend request on Facebook from Dillon L down in Panama.

What a wonderful world we live in. Linda and I saw Dillon for a couple of days a few years ago when we went down to Panama; but contact with him has been intermittent since then. Now that he's on Facebook he was able to find me and I'll easily be able to look in once in a while and see what he's up to. And, I noticed that he is a friend to a woman who may be Randy D's mother. I don't know Randy's mother so I'll hold off contacting her to ask until I see if Dillon makes contact directly with Randy over in Switzerland as he plays with Facebook. It must be ten years since I've been in contact with Randy, and the time before that was probably another ten years back.

But enough of Facebook. When I left off my post the other day about the trip Linda and I took down to The Villages I left off some interesting details.

For instance, on the way home we met a woman at a coffee shop in Savannah who told us that she loved Amoroso rolls when she formerly lived in Allentown or Lancaster or whatever. What are the chances we would meet someone who's first thought on learning we were from near Philly would be to remember Amoroso kaiser rolls? I refrained from telling her that Corropolese kaisers are far superior. Sometimes I'm a surprisingly sensitive person.

I was more impressed with Savannah than Linda was. We didn't, unfortunately, see it at it's best. In fact we saw it at what is probably near its worst. We got there at about nine in the morning when it was in the low 40's and overcast, so the riverwalk was deserted and bleak. Still, I thought it had a certain charm. Linda just thought it was cold and bleak. We were ready for the coffee shop when we finished the mile or so walk. An interesting town, although not as picturesque as I expected. Perhaps we missed the best parts.

The day before Savannah we spent some time in St. Augustine, which was also pretty cold and bleak. Again we saw it at far from it's best. We need to go back there in the late spring or early fall when it's better weather so we can tour the town again in comfort and then get in some beach time. The big highlight was that I got my $6 credit card type lifetime senior pass for the national parks when we went into the old fort. Linda is still much too young to qualify for that deal. . .

We interrupt this blog entry for dinner. . .

An excellent dinner. Linda made rice and stir fry chicken with vegetables. With it we had our daily old people pills washed down with water, and green tea made in the little pot Alex and Christina gave us. Very good.

Just after dinner we got a call from Samuel to report some breaking news: Sam and Deb will not be going to the dance tonight because they've decided to go down to the emergency room instead. It seems Sam was cutting bread with one of their new Cutco knives and there was a bit of a mishap. Samuel reported that no essential parts were detached from his Dad; but it must be a heck of a cut if deb doesn't feel capable of dealing with it.

So, anyway, after we saw Savannah we drove all the way to Petersburg and stayed at a motel that may have seen better days ten or fifteen years ago. The neighborhood also may have seen better days a while back. Not that people weren't sociable. A young lady we saw when we were leaving seemed like the sort of person who has a lot of acquaintances who see her regularly.

Petersburg, as you Civil War buffs know, is just south of Richmond; so we didn't have far to drive to get to Charlotte and Louie's house. Jonathan was home for the weekend so he joined us in going out to breakfast. Charlotte seems to be getting around pretty well on her new hip or knee, or whatever. I get her and Louie mixed up in the replaced joint department. At any rate both of them and Jonny are doing well. Besides the knee, I'm pretty sure it was the knee, Charlotte also recently hurt her back a bit and got laid off from her job. But she was still plenty feisty.

After leaving Richmond it was practically a hop, skip and jump to get home. Two hundred and forty miles goes by fast at 70 miles an hour, which Jas's car did with ease, eve after its transmission asked to be checked after we got north of Wilmington with only a ten or fifteen miles to go. We couldn't find anything alarming about the Check Transmission message in the owner's manual so we continued on.

Enough for now except to report that the ground is frozen solid here, so I was able to get another tractor bucket load of wood from the other side of the property. I think I now have enough to get through the winter, although I'll be getting more to pile for next year whenever the ground is frozen.