Sheep Guarding Llama

Thursday. I am back to work, more or less, for a day or two. The girls and I are back at dad’s. We have two days here before we need to get on the road to meet up with the rest of the family caravaning down to Texas.

I had a long morning of working on tickets. A lot of things were backed up from me traveling so much for so long. Three days on the road, two days of meetings. I’ve been away from the computer quite a lot. Plus a holiday day, although very few tickets get created on a holiday.

It was really warm today. And a huge rain storm up on the farm.

Dad spent the day hanging out with the girls. They have all really missed each other. I saw all of them very little, as I was just working all day.

Dad got us pizza from Papa Roni’s for dinner (Pap Roni’s is the new name for Davis’ Pizza in Pavilion.) I wonder how many of us still think of it as Davis’. I am pretty sure that the original place opened before I was born. If it didn’t, it was certainly open before I was five and started kindergarten. It seemed like a new business when I was little. But it has “always been there”. I can’t remember when it was sold and renamed, but it has been Papa Roni’s for so long now. But to me, it will always be Davis’. I grew up knowing the Davis family, too.

Liesl and I watched The Last Jedi with dad. I know that dad and I had not seen it before. I don’t believe that Liesl has seen it before, either.

After catching up with Star Wars, we found Armegeddon on Netflix. I have not seen that movie in a very, very long time and, of course, Liesl has never seen it. So we watched that together.

After I put the girls to bed, I worked on NodeBB updates for MangoLassi.

Wednesday.  It’s the Fourth of July and today is the annual Doty family reunion down in Waverly, New York.  The girls are going down there with the Grices, and coming home with me in the evening. So I finally get to see them after weeks of them being with their cousins and grandparents in Frankfort.

So I got up and got on the road right away this morning.  It is around three hours, or a little less, to get down there.  Not a bad drive.  But would be much better if I had not just done most of it yesterday.

As always, it is too warm on July 4th to really do anything.  But it was not a record hot day, or anything.  Overall, just a little too warm.

It was very exciting to see the girls, we have been apart for too long.  They were having a great time with all of the kids by the time that I had arrived.

I can’t believe how long I have gone without seeing my girls.

You can see the cards that they made for me poking out of my pocket.  I did not get to see them for Father’s Day.

Ciana had one of her cousins do her hair in a new style today.  Good for the warm weather.

We had a nice day visiting with the family.  Our first time here without Dominica or Madeline.  They are still in Scotland and won’t be back for several more days.

The girls played with their cousins all day.  They learned some complex new party game that they call Mafia.  They played that for hours today.

We left in the late afternoon to drive back up to my dad’s place.  He hasn’t seen the girls all summer yet.

Tuesday. My busy week continues. Yesterday it was meetings in Pennsylvania. This morning I had to be up early and out the door to drive down Interstate 390 to get down to Big Flats.

I was running early, so I stopped in Bath to see about breakfast at the Taco Bell. But they didn’t have breakfast today. I hunted around town until I found a McDonald’s instead.

I got to the Big Flats manufacturing facility just a little early. I put in a decently long day, but it went really well. Lots of documentation, planning, investigation, and getting to know the people that we work with. This is not a new customer, but one that I have never worked with first hand before and we need to transition them over to understanding who we are now. They had a lot of things to tell us about what had been happening in the past. We learned quite a bit from this visit.

It was a good day. Unfortunately I did not think the travel through very well. If I had, I would have gotten a hotel down in the Big Flats area for the night. Instead I am driving back up to dad’s place, and turning around and doing the same drive back down here first thing tomorrow morning, too, so that I can go to July 4th on the Farm in Waverly which is very close to here.

Very excited, though. I finally get to see the girls again tomorrow. It has been several weeks without them. I hate going even a few days without spending time with them. This has been really hard.

Some time this evening to hang out with dad again.

Monday. I started the day off at the DoubleTree in Youngstown, Ohio. I got up early, loaded up the car, and went looking for a Taco Bell for breakfast. I had to drive around time a little while looking for the Taco Bell. I got to see a staggering amount of abandonment. What a deserted town. It is crazy. It felt like I was in an episode of The Walking Dead. Everything seemed to be dead and empty.

As I drove out of the city to head over to Pennsylvania, it continued. Mile after mile of zero life. No people, no movement, no sign of upkeep. Every house looked like people had just left it there. Some boarded up, some just not kept up. It was really something to see.

My drive over to my meeting in Pennsylvania did not take very long. My meeting lasted several hours. I got a tour of the derelict industrial area of the Pennsylvania border lands. I got to see several towns, and tour a gas station and mini-marked operation.

After my meeting, I drove from the meeting up to dad’s house in New York. Tonight was the only real time that dad and I have to hang out for a bit. Tomorrow I am on the road to work yet again. Then the day after that I have the family reunion for Dominica’s mother’s family down in Waverly.

So I arrived early evening at dad’s and we just spent the evening hanging out.

Sunday. I got up this morning in Louisville, Kentucky at the Tru by Hilton. I got to sleep in as I have not far at all to drive today.

I managed to book a Doubletree Hotel in Youngstown, Ohio, which is very near my meeting for tomorrow. I have never actually been to Youngstown before, even though I have been close to it so many times over the decades.

Today’s drive was just a few hours, and I made great time. There were other cars making a good pace through southern Ohio so I was able to drive with them and it seemed like a barely did a thing today.

I arrived in Youngstown in the late afternoon. I commented to dad (via text) that it looked just like Binghamton, New York. Same age, style, era, and run down in the same way.

I found the hotel and it turns out that it is one that has just been totally refurbished after decades of being closed, and is newly purchased by the Hilton brand. It is a classic property, an anchor of downtown Youngstown, and really critical that it has reopened. You can tell instantly that having it reopen is going to do wonders for this dead city. It’s position downtown could not be more perfect.

I got some time to talk to the general manager and learned that I was right, Youngstown is so much like Binghamton that they, in fact, sent everyone at the hotel to Binghamton for training before opening this one. I showed him my message that I had sent to dad saying how similar the two were just fifteen minutes earlier. We talked and since I was so interested, I was upgraded to the best room in the hotel! Top floor, high ceilings, great view. Best hotel that I’ve stayed in in a long time, and a great rate as I was one of the very first customers. Worked out perfectly.

I called Monica, but she had plans tonight and could not come and hang out. I have a lot of free time this evening.

I went down and had a nice dinner at the restaurant in the hotel. I sat outside on the “square”. It was a great restaurant with wonderful food. And quite busy. The hotel is newer than the restaurant and it was clearly a destination restaurant in town. I had a cocktail with dinner.

After dinner, it was just an early bed for me. Showered, talked to Jenn Jones for a while, have not heard from her for a few years, not since 2013 when we moved out of Dallas the last time. Then sleep. Tomorrow is going to be very busy. I have to travel in the morning, a meeting for a few hours, then a lot more driving up to dad’s.