Sheep Guarding Llama

This morning we all hung out in the hotel, the Hampton Inn in Sayre, Pennsylvania, until around lunch time as we were not sure when we were supposed to head over to the farm for the day.  I think that everyone appreciated getting the extra rest, too.

We hung out on the farm for several hours.  At three I went out to get the car fueled up, bought some drinks and snacks for it, got everything packed up and stopped by the hotel to wash up and relax a little before going back to the farm.  Once back, I got Liesl loaded up and just after five we were on the road.  We are driving together down to Texas tonight while everyone else that is going down to Texas is spending another night in Waverly and Sayre, going back to Frankfort in the morning and then leaving the morning after that to drive down to Texas.  So Liesl and I are doing six hours less total driving than the rest of the family.  But we are doing it with just one driver and no cruise control.  And we have to get down there by Monday morning, which is going to be a challenge but this is the window with which we have to work.

The drive went well.  We started by going down PA 220 to the Interstate 99 corridor which took us all of the way down to the Maryland border area where it switched back to PA 220 again.  It was a bit of a slow drive but very pretty and no traffic.  Liesl was playing with her iPad for the first hour or so.  I noticed in Troy, Pennsylvania that she was asleep in the back seat and was asleep for an hour.

I know that Liesl woke up around the time that we crossed into Maryland.  I remarked to her that we were in Maryland and she said that she thought that it was a very pretty place.  And it was, very pretty in that area for sure.

We turned west and drove into Cumberland, Maryland as it was getting dark.  It was about time for food and a bathroom break and when I saw a Taco Bell I decided that this was a good place to stop as they would have clean, manageable bathrooms as well as good food options before we head into the empty spaces in eastern West Virginia which could make stopping for anything rather difficult for a while.  It was probably a little after eight when we stopped at Taco Bell.

The stop at Taco Bell was perfect.  The bathrooms were clean and private, which was perfect. This is Liesl and my first time dealing with us traveling without Dominica to deal with the bathroom situation and that makes things a little complex.  This made it simple.  That alone made us very happy that we stopped.

Getting food was perfect too.  I got my regular dollar menu items and Liesl got a bowl of rice.  She loves rice.  In fact, she loves it so much that she made me go back and get her a second bowl of rice.  And she loved that so much that she decided to have me get her a third bowl of rice!  She ate all three and was very happy.  She has decided that she loves Taco Bell and can’t wait to eat at the one near Uncle Joe’s house in Houston.

Unfortunately, because Liesl ate so many bowls of rice, when we went outside to get back into the car we discovered that the streets and the parking lot were packed with people who had all been watching the Cumberland fireworks display that had ended no more than thirty seconds before we went outside!  Talk about bad timing.  Liesl did not get to see fireworks because we had to leave Waverly early and now she missed these too.  And on top of that, we were now caught in so much traffic that we lost at least twenty minutes trying to get out of Cumberland is what was now extremely busy traffic.

At least Liesl got to see about a half dozen rockets go up as we drove east towards West Virginia.  It must have been some of the suburbs of Cumberland still doing their own fireworks shows or something that we just caught the tail end of.  It was not very much but Liesl has seen so few fireworks shows that hopefully she does not know what she was missing.  She really enjoyed the few that she managed to see.

It was a very, very long drive after Cumberland.  Liesl was asleep pretty soon after that and I was able to listen to my books via Audible.  I had started reading “The Imperial Cruise” that was about Theodore Roosevelt but the atrocities that he oversaw were so grusesome that even in book form I could not read it around Liesl so had to choose something else to read.  I found Simon Winchester’s book “The Men Who United the States” and started reading that.  Winchester’s books are always excellent.  It kept me away but it was a really long night and really exhausting.

We had originally been hoping to make it to Richmond, Kentucky by two in the morning.  That did not happen at all.  First because we needed to leave at four and actually left just after five.  Also because we had a nearly hour long stop at Taco Bell.  Plus we were just not making great time, it seemed.  The traffic around Cumberland adding to that.

So instead of two in the morning, at which point I was tired but not horrible, it was five in the morning when we finally arrived at the Hampton Inn in Richmond, Kentucky.  I was in really rough shape.

We checked into the hotel and it was straight to bed.  Tomorrow is going to be really rough as even if I slept until noon it would not be a full night’s sleep!  We are supposed to be meeting Gene for breakfast so I dropped him a note to let him know that it would not be an early breakfast and off to sleep I went.

I have the Hilton Honors app on my iPhone now and I am loving it.  It really helps with me being able to look up hotel information like address, getting a map, contact information, making a booking or whatever.

I have today as a holiday at work and we got super lucky that there was no major issue today, which is really something considering we have barely had a quiet day without a disaster in close to a month, so the fact that today was scheduled to be a holiday and we actually were able to take it as one was right on the verge of being a miracle.

As it is a day off we do not need to jump out of bed and get moving super early today, which was great.  We got to sleep in and rest and relax.  But as soon as we were reasonably up we were getting onto the road to head down to Sayre, Pennsylvania for the holiday.  I am driving Liesl in the Chevy Spark while everyone else comes down in the GMC Acadia.  It was late morning when we got onto the road.  Dominica’s parents were out first in their Subaru at least fifteen minutes before the rest of us.  Francesca, Dominica and the rest of the kids were ahead of Liesl and me by a couple minutes but by the time that we got to Utica we saw them in the McDonald’s drive-thru as we went directly to the highway so we were already a few minutes ahead of them at that point.

Before I got off the Thruway in Syracuse to get onto Interstate 481 south I had already passed Dominica’s parents.  Liesl and I made good time all the way down to Sayre.  It was an easy drive.  This is, I am pretty sure, the first time that Liesl and I have traveled alone so far.  This was quite a long trip for just the two of us.

Everyone else went directly to Dominica’s aunt’s house in Waverly but Liesl and I went directly to the Hampton Inn, which is right down the street from Dominica’s aunt’s house, and checked in and made sure that everything was set with the rooms.  Our family has one room and Francesca’s has another just down the hall on the second floor.  Liesl climbed right up on the king bed when we got there with her iPad and chilled for a bit.  I had skipped taking a shower this morning figuring that I would take one here so I took the opportunity to take a nice, long, relaxing shower.  Boy have I missed high end American showers – that is one thing that we do so much better in the US than in Europe.

By the time that I was out of the shower Liesl was fast asleep, rolled up and completed encased in the top blanket.  She was so adorable all hidden away.  It took a bit of work to wake her up and convince her to go down to the car so that we could go join everyone up the street in Waverly.

As soon as I arrived at the house, everyone was getting into cars to take the kids into Elmira to some municipal park there that has a huge slide that the kids really love.  So I drove Liesl there and we all had a great time.  Had to be there for an hour or more.  This was the fastest slide in a playground that I have ever seen.  To make it even faster they were using wax paper to speed people up.  The slide was so fast that most of the kids, including Madeline and Emily, would shoot right off of the bottom of it.  I had to catch a lot of kids coming down before they ate grass (or mud) at the bottom.  Liesl loved the slide and did it a lot, maybe more than anyone, but she did not do it super fast and never needed to be caught at the bottom.  Luciana kept thinking that she wanted to do it and would climb up to the top but would only come down the slide if one of her bigger cousins, mostly Alex, would hold her on their laps when they did it.

We got back from the playground and it was time for everyone to change and get over to the country club or golf course right around the corner as we were doing a big family dinner there.

While we were at dinner, Liesl bit into a roll and lost yet another tooth!  This time it was her fifth one out in about five weeks.  Her front teeth are already all gone.  She is losing teeth farther back.  She has like no teeth left with which to eat anything.  But she has caught up to Garrett now!

It was getting dark when we got back the house.  We visited for a while but were kicked out early as the older generation wanted to get to bed.  So Diane went and picked up some beer that we brought back to the Hampton and she, Dominica, Francesca and I drink in our hotel room until late at night.  Diane had quite a time show us her collection of Helium Booth video that now Dominica and Francesca are addicted to making as well.

All of the kids ended up staying up quite late as well.  They are going to be really tired tomorrow.

The alarm went off at four in the morning giving me roughly four and a half hours of sleep last night.  These short nights are starting to catch up with me. I am feeling very tired today.

I had packed everything last night so getting out of the house really was not too bad.  I zipped upstairs and got ready for the day and showered.  I was out of the shower before Art arrived to pick me up.  Dad had gotten up to say goodbye as well.

It was four thirty when Art and I got in the car and headed to Pavilion to get gas and then up to Interstate 490 and on to Rochester.  This was actually Art’s first time ever going to the Rochester Amtrak station and he did not know where it was and accidentally got off on Interstate 390 North going up by where I used to work in the Emerson and Lexington areas up there circa 1995.

We got over the train station at just past five thirty.  The train is scheduled for five forty six and should arrive in Utica at four till eight in the morning.  I was looking forward to having down time on the train.  A few hours without interruptions so that I could just relax and recenter.

When I got into the train station the train was running just five minutes late.  But after a few minutes it got later and later and ended up not arriving to pick us up until a quarter after six.  Not a horrible delay, but more than I had been expected.

The early morning train was surprisingly busy.  The station was practically full.  Everyone had seats and there was plenty of room, but it was as full as you could be without getting the sense of being cramped.

I was pretty thirsty not having thought to get a drink before I left dad’s house so I spent two dollars on a bottle of green tea from a vending machine.  I am very hopeful that when Rochester builds its new train station and bus station complex which I could see being worked on across the street from where I sat, that they will include things like a cafe to get coffee and pastries.  It does not take much and would do a lot to enhance the station.  It is especially important to do this given that the train is routinely late and being stuck in the station for an extra half an hour is very common and a few extra hours is not unheard of.  An ATM would not be a bad idea either.

I spent some time talking to one older gentlemen, probably in his late eighties, who was on his way to Connecticut to visit family for the holiday weekend.  He had served in the USMC and had been in combat in Lebanon at some point.

I helped a Bulgarian who lived in Buffalo figure out how to get to the Buffalo bus station from the Amtrak station.  He was in the Rochester station before I got there at five thirty and his train was not even scheduled to get there until nine hours later and would almost certainly end up being late because they always are in that direction.

Once on the train everything was smooth.  I got two seats to myself.  I put my carry on items up above and listened to my book, “Made in America” by Bill Bryson for a while.  I fell asleep once or twice once I was past the Syracuse station.  I needed every minute that I could get.

It was about eight thirty when I got to Utica’s Union Station.  Dominica was waiting for me and we were to the house pretty quickly. Once we arrived we decided that since the kids were still asleep that we would run to Dave’s Diner for some breakfast.  We both got their version of garbage plates.  Sadly we are too far from Rochester and they have no idea what a garbage plate is out in the Utica area.  It’s all messed up and doesn’t resemble a real one in any way.

Liesl and Luciana were awake and waiting for us at the door when we arrived back at the house.

It was pretty much time for me to get right to work.  So I set my little office back up in the upstairs bedroom where our stuff is and hunkered down for a day of being alone upstairs again.

I worked until eight this evening.  Then around nine I took Dominica’s dad, Madeline and Emily to Utica to get ice cream for dessert.

Dominica had a really busy day doing laundry and packing for the entire day.  There is much to do as we are leaving to go to Waverly in the morning for two days.  Thankfully this is a short work week and I am off of work tomorrow so we have the ability to travel down whenever makes sense and I get to spend time with the family once there rather than having to work the entire time.  We are going to stay there overnight at the Hampton in Sayre on the Pennsylvania side of the line.  Then on Saturday evening Liesl and I are going to head for Kentucky while Dominica stays with the rest of the family for another night there and then going back up to Frankfort and down again to follow us two days later on the drive down to Texas.

We were unable to get to bed when we wanted, which was around ten, because there was so much packing to do.  We were up until midnight getting everything packed up.  Luciana got in a lot of trouble this evening and was in bed at ten thirty but was still awake quite late.  Liesl, on the other hand, was not in trouble and was allowed to stay up but was asleep shortly after eleven.

Boy July really sneaked up on us this year.  I can’t believe that it is already well into summer.  Today is my last day at dad’s for, well, the year I guess.  Early tomorrow morning I am going to catch the 5:40am Empire Service 280 out of Rochester to head east to Utica.  Only going to be there for a day before we go down to Waverly for the annual Fourth of July party.  This year we are staying overnight and Dominica and the family will be there all weekend.  The plan is that Liesl and I are going to leave Saturday afternoon from Waverly and drive to Lexington, Kentucky where we are spending the night.  Then on Sunday driving from Kentucky to, we hope, Houston.  Dominica, Francesca and the rest of the kids are leaving from Frankfort on Monday and getting to Houston on Tuesday.  Then early Wednesday morning I am flying from Houston to San Francisco and will be there for nine days before returning to Houston on that following Friday morning.  No rest for me!

I got up at ten this morning, that gave me about four hours of sleep.  That’s two really rough nights in a row so I am feeling pretty tired and run down.  This week and just been intense.  And I know that I am not going to be getting very much sleep tonight either.

This morning I booked my Amtrak ticket for tomorrow.  I am scheduled for the 5:46 Empire Service out of Rochester.  That is way too early but it is the only way that the family has a shot of picking me up and still managing to leave to go to the Enchanted Forest Water Safari if the weather and everything work out for it.  The girls have been begging to go for months, easily six months, and have been looking forward to it like crazy so it would be horrible if they were here for so long and never managed to go.  The park only opened up last week so there were not chances before this.  The weather has been cold and rainy for weeks so it has not been good for it anyway.

Had to work today, of course, and things are still super busy at the office.  This has been going on for weeks.  So I was working from about eleven in the morning (which is pretty early San Francisco time) until evening.  In the evening I let the office know that this was my last chance to spend time with dad, then he and I drove up to Avon to go to Tom Wahl’s for dinner.  We were thinking about the fish fry but I ended up being unable to resist their veggie burger and fries which are just so good.

It was cool out and raining a little but we decided to sit outside under the covered picnic pavilion that they have out back.  We were there until about nine thirty and then got soft service ice cream that we ate there before I drove us back to the house in the Volvo.

I got to bed as early as I was able to get myself to fall asleep.  Have to be up quite early tomorrow.  Art is coming to pick me up at four thirty.  I am going to be exhausted.

Placeholder Tuesday.