[OFB Cafe] Trip Report

[Donald Spoon]

Since everyone is longing for my "banter", I thought I would catch 
everyone up on what I have been doing over the summer.

The wife and I decided back in July to re-do our kitchen...  It was 30+ 
years old and in a bad state of disrepair.  After checking the piggy 
bank we determined that we could go "first class" and hire a contractor 
to do it all, so that started the long process of planning, contractor 
selection, and selection of the appliances plus materials we wanted 
used.  We had plenty of "lead time" so we did things slowly and 
methodically.

On 14 September we turned the keys to the house over to the contractor 
and left on a month-long driving trip around the South East quadrant of 
the U.S.  We went from San Antonio to Americus GA, where I participated 
in a POW remembrance ceremony at the Andersonville National Historic 
Site.  I had a great time there. From there we drove up to Alexandria VA 
to see our son and daughter-in-law for a few day before proceeding on up 
to Hershey PA for a few days until the end of September.  Hershey is a 
great place to visit and if you want to stay at a quaint B&B, I can 
recommend the 1825 Inn in nearby Palmyra PA.

While in Hershey, we took a side trip to Gettysburg PA to tour the Civil 
War Battlefield there.  We did it on Segways!  It is the only way to go, 
IMHO.  We covered about 12 miles on 2.5 hours and got to see things "up 
close" while a certified Park Historian narrated the history of the 
various places over what appeared to be something similar to a WI-FI or 
Bluetooth broadcast setup from our Segway tour guide to our headsets.  
Neat Tech!!  He could talk to us while underway, but at a point of 
interest he turned on a pre-recorded text of the narration.

The rest of the trip was essentially back west roughly parallel to I-70 
with stops in Columbus OH, Springfield IL and Lees Summit MO to see 
various friends from the past.  While in Lees Summit, I managed to visit 
with a few of my classmates from ELEMENTARY school!  Talk about a 
Geezer's Convention!!

 From there we spent a few days in Springfield MO before making the 
final dash back home.  Alice was chomping at the bit to see what the 
contractor had done to our kitchen...  It wasn't pretty :-(  They messed 
on the floor tile pretty bad, and we had to wind up getting it ripped 
out and replaced.  We did the final "acceptance" yesterday, and both 
Alice and I have been pretty happy with the way things turned out.

Overall we drove about 4500+ miles in about a month.    Alice and I 
hadn't ever been on a "vacation" that long before.  We did see other 
places of interest, like Mount Vernon, VA --- George Washington's 
home.   We saw a LOT of historic stuff, and got to observe the initial 
stages of the autumn leaves changing colors.  I have pictures and if 
anyone is interested, I can post them somewhere.  Most of them are 
already on my site at Windows Live.

And THAT, dear readers, is why I haven't been posting on this list for a 
while!!

Cheers,
-Don Spoon-