Off I went on another paint delivery into the deep boonies of Crawford County, Pennsylvania. Vinny gave me directions to C&M Hardwoods on Leboeuf Trail in Centerville. He's not my first choice for directions, but of all the humans currently at Sherwin Williams Meadville, he was the only one who knows where it is. "Go up that street there, what is that, 27?" Great, not even out of sight of the store and he's unsure of his information. "You know where you turn left to go up the hill to the Fairgrounds?" "You mean 77. Yes." "Go on up the hill to the KwikFill" Good. If there's a KwikFill, a Country Fair or a Sheetz, he's all over it. "Keep going through Blooming Valley, and on the other side you'll go up the hill and keep going until you come to a road to the right called Lyona Road. There's really no landmarks out there to help you find it." So far so good. "Turn right on Lyona Road and go to the end. The highway (he means 408) bends there, so going straight from Lyona Road puts you on the highway to Townville. Go through Townville, and on the other side you'll come to a four way intersection. I always look for a dilapidated trailer, and soon after that there's this four way. There's a sign there that says C&M Hardwoods. Turn right. It's a dirt road. Go about, I don't know, I'm terrible with distances, maybe a mile and a half?" I shrugged. "You'll find it. There's a building on the right and a building on the left. I don't think there's a sign, but you'll see Chris' green Ford truck." Well, I thought, I've gone farther on less before, how far wrong can I go? Let's find out.
The early stages were easy. But once I was past the KwikFill, I felt like I was in uncharted territory. On I went through Blooming Valley and up the other side, and on and on, trying to read every street sign going off to the right, knowing how well unmarked much of rural Pennsylvania is (see "The Road Less Marked" several posts back) and keep up speed so as not to piss off the local drivers. After way too many minutes of barreling along Route77 on the far side of Blooming Valley, I decided I must have missed it. I began looking for a place to pull off this busy highway. Up ahead there was a road off to the right. I slowed down and turned right onto, you guessed it, Lyona Road.
On I went on Lyona, rereading my notes I took while Vinny rambled. Miles down the road I finally came to the double stop signs in series taking you in a straight line from Lyona Road to the eastbound leg of Route 408. On through Townville and out the other side. Now I have gone there and back again, and I still couldn't tell you where this dilapidated trailer is. Perhaps, after all my decades in the South, I have a different idea of what to look for when it comes to dilapidated trailers. Anyway, I kept going and going until I figured I must have missed it. I began looking for a good place to turn around. There was an intersection up ahead. Oh look it's...Leboeuf Trail. There's the C&M Hardwoods thataway sign. I pulled off and found my delivery ticket. 11505 Leboeuf Trail was the address. On I went.
As usual, house numbers were hard to come by, but enough people had numbers on their mailboxes for me to track my progress from 12530 down through 11875 and then there was a cluster of mailboxes with four digit numbers! I went too far? How did I do that? I looked for a place to turn around. Guess what. C&M does have a sign. Right there.
The cluster of mailboxes served a cluster of houses down a little dirt cross street. Silly me.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Sunday, August 5, 2012
CATA
The first public transportation I ever took was the bus system in Washington, DC in the mid-sixties with my worldly grandmother. I didn't know anything about it other than to keep a hold on her hand and ride wherever she took us, to the theatre and then back to the National Geographic building where my dad worked. Second was about forty miles and several years down the road. Having never wanted a vehicle, my first mission when I moved in 1971 from Vero Beach, Florida to Glen Burnie, Maryland was to learn the Baltimore City Bus System. My brother and his wife Liz lived in northeast Baltimore, and I visited them once a month or so. Liz was a Baltimore native who had taken city buses to school and everywhere else all of her life, so she could rattle off route numbers from anywhere to wherever. I quickly became proficient at it as well. The phone book had the system map in the front with the other maps - very handy if you could find a phone booth (remember them?) with an intact directory.
In May of '75 I flew to London, and was issued a transit system map in my tourist packet, which I used daily for the seven days of my "London Show Tour," covered in detail in my post from October 8th, 2009 entitled "Four Plays." In October of 1977 I got a job delivering new trucks all over the east. Figuring out transit systems became part of my skillset. From New York and New Jersey or Chicago or Atlanta, I'd breeze into a city, deliver my truck and then figure out how to get home to Baltimore, by bus, train or plane. In December of '82 I took my 13-year-old little buddy Heather Bowers on the "snow tour" to New York City, Buffalo and Niagara Falls, Ontario, complete with a hair-raising adventure on the New York Subway System ("Slowly I Turned" posted October 21, 2009.) Since then, I've used the Orlando LYNX system, learned Boston's MBTA better than their own information people, and put Albuquerque's buses to a lot of good use.
Then we moved to Meadville, Pennsylvania. I knew before we moved that Meadville has a bus system, the Crawford Area Transportation Authority, but I didn't pay it much attention, Meadville being so small and much as I like to walk. Then I had knee surgery. Suddenly that fifteen degree hill from Grove Street to the top of Chestnut Street became a long hard painful slog. Suddenly I was motivated to learn the system.
Three buses. That's all it is. The routes are divided into five, but it's really three. Blue Route A and Blue Route B are the same bus, same driver, A leaving the Downtown Mall on the hour and B on the half hour. Red Routes A and B are exactly the same hour and half hour schedule. Green is the long one that takes a full hour. It goes out to the Walmart, the movie theater and the Park Avenue Plaza among other attractions. That's it, the CATA bus system. Since I've been out and about after surgery, I've taken Green out and back once. Blue A, however, takes twenty-some minutes to haul my fat ass around the southeastern Meadville area from a block and a half away from work to the top of Alden Street, a block and a half from my house. It may be small, but it does the job I need it to do. That's all I can ask of it.
In May of '75 I flew to London, and was issued a transit system map in my tourist packet, which I used daily for the seven days of my "London Show Tour," covered in detail in my post from October 8th, 2009 entitled "Four Plays." In October of 1977 I got a job delivering new trucks all over the east. Figuring out transit systems became part of my skillset. From New York and New Jersey or Chicago or Atlanta, I'd breeze into a city, deliver my truck and then figure out how to get home to Baltimore, by bus, train or plane. In December of '82 I took my 13-year-old little buddy Heather Bowers on the "snow tour" to New York City, Buffalo and Niagara Falls, Ontario, complete with a hair-raising adventure on the New York Subway System ("Slowly I Turned" posted October 21, 2009.) Since then, I've used the Orlando LYNX system, learned Boston's MBTA better than their own information people, and put Albuquerque's buses to a lot of good use.
Then we moved to Meadville, Pennsylvania. I knew before we moved that Meadville has a bus system, the Crawford Area Transportation Authority, but I didn't pay it much attention, Meadville being so small and much as I like to walk. Then I had knee surgery. Suddenly that fifteen degree hill from Grove Street to the top of Chestnut Street became a long hard painful slog. Suddenly I was motivated to learn the system.
Three buses. That's all it is. The routes are divided into five, but it's really three. Blue Route A and Blue Route B are the same bus, same driver, A leaving the Downtown Mall on the hour and B on the half hour. Red Routes A and B are exactly the same hour and half hour schedule. Green is the long one that takes a full hour. It goes out to the Walmart, the movie theater and the Park Avenue Plaza among other attractions. That's it, the CATA bus system. Since I've been out and about after surgery, I've taken Green out and back once. Blue A, however, takes twenty-some minutes to haul my fat ass around the southeastern Meadville area from a block and a half away from work to the top of Alden Street, a block and a half from my house. It may be small, but it does the job I need it to do. That's all I can ask of it.
Monday, April 23, 2012
Just Like Old Times!
Yesterday, after I got all of my chores done, I allowed myself to go out and play.
See, Saturday night Carmen called from Jacksonville, FL where she was visiting a sick friend. During the course of the conversation she mentioned that she was glad to be coming home on Sunday, but wishing she didn't have to drive home from the Pittsburgh airport all by herself. She said she knew it had to be that way, but just wished it were otherwise. Somewhere deep down, an old yearning stirred, one that hadn't been heard from in a while. Way back in the early postings of this blog you'll find the fruits of it.
Sunday morning I made coffee and went after the last stages of the tub/shower caulking project with gusto, seeing light at the end of that tunnel. I caulked, cleaned up, and completely reassembled the bathroom. Then I went online to Greyhound.com and checked schedules from Meadville to Pittsburgh on a Sunday. Carmen's plane was scheduled to land at 6:28. The bus to Pittsburgh was scheduled to arrive at 5:20. I then looked up Pittsburgh's public transportation and found a bus leaving at 5:40 from downtown Pittsburgh, arriving at the airport at 6:25. That's cutting it pretty close. If the Greyhound is late and the plane is early, I could be stuck in Pittsburgh until the next bus back to Meadville. I printed the #28X Airport Flyer route map and schedule, and continued my chores.
I put away all of the tools and other materiel from the bathroom project, and dealt with the dishes and recycling that had been piling up since Thursday, when the bathroom project began. I scooped litter boxes and put out the garbage for Monday's pick up, including the detritus from the bathroom project. Then I looked at the clock. It was after 1:00. I could procrastinate on laundry. If I was going to catch the 2:55 Greyhound, it was time to begin launch sequence.
Gingerly I took a bath, being careful not to splash water on the new caulk. As I dressed, I loaded things into my backpack - my Free Cell game, my MP3 player and headphones, my Rand McNally road atlas, my hearing aids (it was windy and rainy for my walk downtown) and my various schedules and route maps.
It was hard to get out the door with the kitties dancing around me, lobbying for an early feeding time. I made it outside, and came right back in for a warmer coat. My raincoat would have sufficed for now, but who knew what my life in Pittsburgh might be like? Kitties notwithstanding, I managed to get out the door again.
The walk downtown was uneventful. I stopped by the bank's ATM for enough cash to see me through whatever, bought snacks for the road at Rite Aid and arrived at the Greyhound stop - a sign in front of the Downtown Mall - at 2:45. No bus yet. I went into the mall to wait.
At precisely 2:55 the Greyhound pulled up. After fifteen minutes online and fifteen more on the phone, all I had learned about tickets was that I couldn't get one on a Sunday. I hoped there was a way to surmount this problem, or this would be the end of the journey. The driver got out. I asked about a ticket to Pittsburgh. "You give me your ID. When we get to Pittsburgh, you pay the fare and get your ID back." Fair enough. I handed over my driver's license and boarded the bus.
Two and a third hours passed quickly between the Free Cell game and the five or six times I dozed off. There were only two stops on the way, and these two were not what I would have expected. We stopped in New Castle, pretty far off the straight and narrow, and (of all places) Zelienople. Nobody got on or off in either metropolis. And it seemed like only minutes later we were wending our way through the streets and bridges of Pittsburgh. We were right on time.
The only thing I didn't know was where the bus station was in relation to the 28X route. So when I paid my thirty dollar fare at the Pittsburgh station, I asked the ticket agent where I could catch the bus to the airport. She told me to turn right when I got out the door and go to Liberty Avenue a couple blocks down. I turned right and walked a couple of blocks. No Liberty. I consulted my route map. It showed a stop at Liberty and 7th. I was at Penn and 14th. I turned right again and smacked headlong into Liberty. Back I hurried, watching the time and the street signs - tenth, ninth, eighth, seventh. Which side of Liberty? Which direction is the airport? There's a bus - 28X to the airport! If I had been on the other side of the street I could have caught it. If I were allowed to run on my new knee I might have been able to catch it. I consulted my schedule. The next one would be at 6:10, arriving at 6:55 - cutting it VERY close. I called Carmen's cell phone and left a message asking her not to leave the airport.
The next 28X was right on time. It's called the Airport Flyer, and man oh man does it fly! It was seven minutes early. It let us out at baggage claim. I ran in, frantically searching for a monitor that would tell me if the Delta flight from Atlanta was on time or what. I found one. The plane was "AT GATE." The baggage would be at Baggage Carousel L. There it was. I mosied around to the far side back corner, and there she was! No Greyhound back to Meadville in the morning. Yay!
We grabbed her suitcase, took the parking shuttle to the car and headed out for some pretty good Mexican food at Don Pablo's on the way home in the good old Pennsylvania pouring rain.
See, Saturday night Carmen called from Jacksonville, FL where she was visiting a sick friend. During the course of the conversation she mentioned that she was glad to be coming home on Sunday, but wishing she didn't have to drive home from the Pittsburgh airport all by herself. She said she knew it had to be that way, but just wished it were otherwise. Somewhere deep down, an old yearning stirred, one that hadn't been heard from in a while. Way back in the early postings of this blog you'll find the fruits of it.
Sunday morning I made coffee and went after the last stages of the tub/shower caulking project with gusto, seeing light at the end of that tunnel. I caulked, cleaned up, and completely reassembled the bathroom. Then I went online to Greyhound.com and checked schedules from Meadville to Pittsburgh on a Sunday. Carmen's plane was scheduled to land at 6:28. The bus to Pittsburgh was scheduled to arrive at 5:20. I then looked up Pittsburgh's public transportation and found a bus leaving at 5:40 from downtown Pittsburgh, arriving at the airport at 6:25. That's cutting it pretty close. If the Greyhound is late and the plane is early, I could be stuck in Pittsburgh until the next bus back to Meadville. I printed the #28X Airport Flyer route map and schedule, and continued my chores.
I put away all of the tools and other materiel from the bathroom project, and dealt with the dishes and recycling that had been piling up since Thursday, when the bathroom project began. I scooped litter boxes and put out the garbage for Monday's pick up, including the detritus from the bathroom project. Then I looked at the clock. It was after 1:00. I could procrastinate on laundry. If I was going to catch the 2:55 Greyhound, it was time to begin launch sequence.
Gingerly I took a bath, being careful not to splash water on the new caulk. As I dressed, I loaded things into my backpack - my Free Cell game, my MP3 player and headphones, my Rand McNally road atlas, my hearing aids (it was windy and rainy for my walk downtown) and my various schedules and route maps.
It was hard to get out the door with the kitties dancing around me, lobbying for an early feeding time. I made it outside, and came right back in for a warmer coat. My raincoat would have sufficed for now, but who knew what my life in Pittsburgh might be like? Kitties notwithstanding, I managed to get out the door again.
The walk downtown was uneventful. I stopped by the bank's ATM for enough cash to see me through whatever, bought snacks for the road at Rite Aid and arrived at the Greyhound stop - a sign in front of the Downtown Mall - at 2:45. No bus yet. I went into the mall to wait.
At precisely 2:55 the Greyhound pulled up. After fifteen minutes online and fifteen more on the phone, all I had learned about tickets was that I couldn't get one on a Sunday. I hoped there was a way to surmount this problem, or this would be the end of the journey. The driver got out. I asked about a ticket to Pittsburgh. "You give me your ID. When we get to Pittsburgh, you pay the fare and get your ID back." Fair enough. I handed over my driver's license and boarded the bus.
Two and a third hours passed quickly between the Free Cell game and the five or six times I dozed off. There were only two stops on the way, and these two were not what I would have expected. We stopped in New Castle, pretty far off the straight and narrow, and (of all places) Zelienople. Nobody got on or off in either metropolis. And it seemed like only minutes later we were wending our way through the streets and bridges of Pittsburgh. We were right on time.
The only thing I didn't know was where the bus station was in relation to the 28X route. So when I paid my thirty dollar fare at the Pittsburgh station, I asked the ticket agent where I could catch the bus to the airport. She told me to turn right when I got out the door and go to Liberty Avenue a couple blocks down. I turned right and walked a couple of blocks. No Liberty. I consulted my route map. It showed a stop at Liberty and 7th. I was at Penn and 14th. I turned right again and smacked headlong into Liberty. Back I hurried, watching the time and the street signs - tenth, ninth, eighth, seventh. Which side of Liberty? Which direction is the airport? There's a bus - 28X to the airport! If I had been on the other side of the street I could have caught it. If I were allowed to run on my new knee I might have been able to catch it. I consulted my schedule. The next one would be at 6:10, arriving at 6:55 - cutting it VERY close. I called Carmen's cell phone and left a message asking her not to leave the airport.
The next 28X was right on time. It's called the Airport Flyer, and man oh man does it fly! It was seven minutes early. It let us out at baggage claim. I ran in, frantically searching for a monitor that would tell me if the Delta flight from Atlanta was on time or what. I found one. The plane was "AT GATE." The baggage would be at Baggage Carousel L. There it was. I mosied around to the far side back corner, and there she was! No Greyhound back to Meadville in the morning. Yay!
We grabbed her suitcase, took the parking shuttle to the car and headed out for some pretty good Mexican food at Don Pablo's on the way home in the good old Pennsylvania pouring rain.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Hermione Saves The Day!
Wednesday, February 29th Vinnie asked me if I would be able to drive to Pittsburgh on Friday, a scheduled day off. He wasn't certain he'd need this special carpet padding that soon, but he'd know before the end of Thursday. I said sure, I'd go if he needed me to. When I arrived at work Thursday, he told me I was going. He suggested I take my GPS. I like to think I would have done so anyway, but in any case, I was very happy that I did.
Friday morning at a few minutes after seven I loaded my backpack full of MP3, GPS and assorted other necessities into the van and set out. I had the address of my destination on the paperwork, and I began loading it into Hermione as I slogged through Meadville, heading for Interstate 79. She wouldn't accept the street name, however. I guess she'd never heard of it. Luckily, there were directions included in my paperwork. I proceeded as if it were still the twentieth century, with directions printed on a piece of paper. The font used was about six point. Trifocals are good.
"If you are coming from Meadville, you will want to get onto79S and stay on there, you will pass several exits ex: Craberry Twp./Warrendale, keep going past the Wexford, until you see the Sewickley exit, you will bear to the right, go to the first stop sign, make a left follow through small village at a slow pace, you will come across another stop sign beneath an over pass, make a right onto RT 65 north, stay on there for about six miles..." I passed the Cranberry Twp./Warrendale and the Wexford. There was one exit that mentioned Sewickley, but was not called the Sewickley exit, so I gritted my teeth and stayed the course. I was soon rewarded with the actual Sewickley exit. So I followed through a small village at a slow pace, came across a stop sign beneath an over pass, turned right onto State Road 65 and tried like hell to read the directions and drive. "...You will pass Quaker Village Shopping Center/Giant Eagle on your right, Red Cap Cleaners on your left, you will then see the Leetsdale Ind. Park on your left side, bear to the right to get onto the ramp for our facility..." I puzzled over that one while I tried to watch for the landmarks mentioned, never really sure I hadn't already missed one.
My cellular phone rings about three times a month. Twice a month it's Carmen. At this particular stressful moment, it was Vinnie. "Call me when you have the padding loaded. I gotta send you over to the Pittsburgh Sherwin Williams store." "Okay. Bye!"
Keeping the faith, at last I passed the Quaker Village Shopping Center and the Red Cap Car Wash. The industrial park was indeed visible on the left. Bear right...right! Oh shit! Lane change, exit right onto a ramp, left turn at the top of the ramp, cross over the highway to the complex. This part of the journey reminded me a little of Boston - once you find it you see how to find it.
The industrial park's signage pointed the way to the Shaw carpet distribution center. I drove around back to see if there was a shipping office door. I didn't see one, so I pulled into a parking space in front of the building. Stiff from two and a half hours on the road, I climbed out of the van and hobbled to the office door. Inside I found an empty reception area, empty hallway, empty offices along the hall. There was a button to push on the ledge of the reception window. I pressed it and waited. It wasn't thirty seconds before a human came through a door at the end of the hall and approached me. I showed him my paperwork and explained my mission, leaving out the challenges associated with finding the place. He scratched his head. Obviously this paperwork wasn't the normal sort. He went to an office door and expressed his dismay to another human, who took the papers, turned to his computer and began the business of sorting it out. "Where's your truck?" he asked. "Drive it around to the roll-up door in back, and someone will load you up."
Fifteen minutes later and much heavier with ten rolls of padding inside it, the van was on its way back to the highway. I pulled off to the edge of the parking lot and called Vinnie. He gave me the address of the Sherwin Williams at 6583 Hamilton Avenue in Pittsburgh. I fired up Hermione again, fed her this new information, and like a dog with a bone, she was all over it. First we were back on 65 southbound toward Pittsburgh. Hermione said we had about fourteen miles to go before we should exit onto I- 279 North. On we slogged in Friday morning traffic, watching the miles tick off on the GPS. After about twelve miles I encountered road construction. Soon after I began seeing signs telling me that the road was closed ahead, detour ahead, danger Will Robinson. With a sinking feeling, I realized that the exit Hermione was telling me to take was going to be closed. We were indeed shunted off SR 65 about fifty feet shy of the exit. Now maybe if there had been another pair of eyes in the van, we could have found the easy way to turn this misfortune around and find I-279 north. I saw south, and hoped the northbound equivalent would present itself. If it did, I didn't see it.
Hermione was not amused. I continued on the detour with her crying out instructions to exit right and go back to the real exit. I tried to reason with her, but she kept right on recalculating. I exited as soon as I could, and just began taking every turn and every exit she recommended. I have no idea where we went. I remember going through a shopping center parking lot, a business park and an apartment complex. I was completely at her mercy. Finally we got off highways and got on Penn Avenue for a couple of miles of good old fashioned city driving. For a short while, she had spasms where she would recalculate and try to tell me how to get back on Penn Av. I was still on Penn, so I ignored it. She'd unkink herself for a while, then go through it again, like three or four times.
Finally we reached our turn at Liberty Street, which quickly took us to Hamilton, I turned, and there was Sherwin Williams! Good old Hermione! I pulled in, unkinked myself and walked inside the store. They seemed to be expecting me. They told me to back my truck to their dock so they could load a couple of pallets. My perplexed look gave them pause. "Uh, I've got ten rolls of carpet padding in the van. A pallet isn't going to fit!" "We told him to send a box truck!" they replied. "You told Vinnie to send a box truck?" "Who's Vinnie?" "The guy that sent me in a van." A look of understanding dawned on their faces. "There's another Sherwin Williams about a block up the street," they said. "Maybe that's where you're picking up from. This here is an automotive coatings division store."
Oh. I reboarded the van, pulled out onto Hamilton and drove another block or so. There was Sherwin Williams. They were expecting me, and they had six five gallon buckets of paint for me. That fit fine. In ten minutes I had loaded the paint, unloaded my bladder and called Vinnie. "I need you to go to the Hermitage store on your way back." he told me. The Hamilton Street store guy got me the address, and I loaded it into the GPS before setting out once again.
This time she directed me by a few short connectors to State Road 8. I remembered 8. It went through Butler last year when I drove down for my rah rah training meeting with other new people in the district. I pulled out the Pennsylvania map we keep in the van and saw where it was taking me. It was taking me north to the Pennsylvania Turnpike. That's cool. I had zero cash. I figured I'd stop in somewhere where I could buy a Coke and some kind of snack and get cash back for the Pike. On and on I drove through some very pretty countryside, unsullied by stores where I could get Coke and cash back. Miles and miles I drove. Turnpike 5 miles. Turnpike 2 miles. Turnpike 1 mile. I held onto the notion that there's always a commercial center at a major highway intersection. And I was right. Suddenly I had hundreds of possibilities. I chose right side, easy on/off the highway, easy parking. Rite Aid. Good. Coke, trail mix, cash. Mission accomplished.
I could just stop now. The rest of the story is pretty routine. The turnpike took me to I-79, to US-422 to I-376 to State Road 18 right to the Hermitage store. I got two more 5 gallon buckets of paint and headed for home like a horse to the barn.
As she has so many times before, Hermione saved my bacon. Without her I would still be wandering around Pittsburgh.
Friday morning at a few minutes after seven I loaded my backpack full of MP3, GPS and assorted other necessities into the van and set out. I had the address of my destination on the paperwork, and I began loading it into Hermione as I slogged through Meadville, heading for Interstate 79. She wouldn't accept the street name, however. I guess she'd never heard of it. Luckily, there were directions included in my paperwork. I proceeded as if it were still the twentieth century, with directions printed on a piece of paper. The font used was about six point. Trifocals are good.
"If you are coming from Meadville, you will want to get onto79S and stay on there, you will pass several exits ex: Craberry Twp./Warrendale, keep going past the Wexford, until you see the Sewickley exit, you will bear to the right, go to the first stop sign, make a left follow through small village at a slow pace, you will come across another stop sign beneath an over pass, make a right onto RT 65 north, stay on there for about six miles..." I passed the Cranberry Twp./Warrendale and the Wexford. There was one exit that mentioned Sewickley, but was not called the Sewickley exit, so I gritted my teeth and stayed the course. I was soon rewarded with the actual Sewickley exit. So I followed through a small village at a slow pace, came across a stop sign beneath an over pass, turned right onto State Road 65 and tried like hell to read the directions and drive. "...You will pass Quaker Village Shopping Center/Giant Eagle on your right, Red Cap Cleaners on your left, you will then see the Leetsdale Ind. Park on your left side, bear to the right to get onto the ramp for our facility..." I puzzled over that one while I tried to watch for the landmarks mentioned, never really sure I hadn't already missed one.
My cellular phone rings about three times a month. Twice a month it's Carmen. At this particular stressful moment, it was Vinnie. "Call me when you have the padding loaded. I gotta send you over to the Pittsburgh Sherwin Williams store." "Okay. Bye!"
Keeping the faith, at last I passed the Quaker Village Shopping Center and the Red Cap Car Wash. The industrial park was indeed visible on the left. Bear right...right! Oh shit! Lane change, exit right onto a ramp, left turn at the top of the ramp, cross over the highway to the complex. This part of the journey reminded me a little of Boston - once you find it you see how to find it.
The industrial park's signage pointed the way to the Shaw carpet distribution center. I drove around back to see if there was a shipping office door. I didn't see one, so I pulled into a parking space in front of the building. Stiff from two and a half hours on the road, I climbed out of the van and hobbled to the office door. Inside I found an empty reception area, empty hallway, empty offices along the hall. There was a button to push on the ledge of the reception window. I pressed it and waited. It wasn't thirty seconds before a human came through a door at the end of the hall and approached me. I showed him my paperwork and explained my mission, leaving out the challenges associated with finding the place. He scratched his head. Obviously this paperwork wasn't the normal sort. He went to an office door and expressed his dismay to another human, who took the papers, turned to his computer and began the business of sorting it out. "Where's your truck?" he asked. "Drive it around to the roll-up door in back, and someone will load you up."
Fifteen minutes later and much heavier with ten rolls of padding inside it, the van was on its way back to the highway. I pulled off to the edge of the parking lot and called Vinnie. He gave me the address of the Sherwin Williams at 6583 Hamilton Avenue in Pittsburgh. I fired up Hermione again, fed her this new information, and like a dog with a bone, she was all over it. First we were back on 65 southbound toward Pittsburgh. Hermione said we had about fourteen miles to go before we should exit onto I- 279 North. On we slogged in Friday morning traffic, watching the miles tick off on the GPS. After about twelve miles I encountered road construction. Soon after I began seeing signs telling me that the road was closed ahead, detour ahead, danger Will Robinson. With a sinking feeling, I realized that the exit Hermione was telling me to take was going to be closed. We were indeed shunted off SR 65 about fifty feet shy of the exit. Now maybe if there had been another pair of eyes in the van, we could have found the easy way to turn this misfortune around and find I-279 north. I saw south, and hoped the northbound equivalent would present itself. If it did, I didn't see it.
Hermione was not amused. I continued on the detour with her crying out instructions to exit right and go back to the real exit. I tried to reason with her, but she kept right on recalculating. I exited as soon as I could, and just began taking every turn and every exit she recommended. I have no idea where we went. I remember going through a shopping center parking lot, a business park and an apartment complex. I was completely at her mercy. Finally we got off highways and got on Penn Avenue for a couple of miles of good old fashioned city driving. For a short while, she had spasms where she would recalculate and try to tell me how to get back on Penn Av. I was still on Penn, so I ignored it. She'd unkink herself for a while, then go through it again, like three or four times.
Finally we reached our turn at Liberty Street, which quickly took us to Hamilton, I turned, and there was Sherwin Williams! Good old Hermione! I pulled in, unkinked myself and walked inside the store. They seemed to be expecting me. They told me to back my truck to their dock so they could load a couple of pallets. My perplexed look gave them pause. "Uh, I've got ten rolls of carpet padding in the van. A pallet isn't going to fit!" "We told him to send a box truck!" they replied. "You told Vinnie to send a box truck?" "Who's Vinnie?" "The guy that sent me in a van." A look of understanding dawned on their faces. "There's another Sherwin Williams about a block up the street," they said. "Maybe that's where you're picking up from. This here is an automotive coatings division store."
Oh. I reboarded the van, pulled out onto Hamilton and drove another block or so. There was Sherwin Williams. They were expecting me, and they had six five gallon buckets of paint for me. That fit fine. In ten minutes I had loaded the paint, unloaded my bladder and called Vinnie. "I need you to go to the Hermitage store on your way back." he told me. The Hamilton Street store guy got me the address, and I loaded it into the GPS before setting out once again.
This time she directed me by a few short connectors to State Road 8. I remembered 8. It went through Butler last year when I drove down for my rah rah training meeting with other new people in the district. I pulled out the Pennsylvania map we keep in the van and saw where it was taking me. It was taking me north to the Pennsylvania Turnpike. That's cool. I had zero cash. I figured I'd stop in somewhere where I could buy a Coke and some kind of snack and get cash back for the Pike. On and on I drove through some very pretty countryside, unsullied by stores where I could get Coke and cash back. Miles and miles I drove. Turnpike 5 miles. Turnpike 2 miles. Turnpike 1 mile. I held onto the notion that there's always a commercial center at a major highway intersection. And I was right. Suddenly I had hundreds of possibilities. I chose right side, easy on/off the highway, easy parking. Rite Aid. Good. Coke, trail mix, cash. Mission accomplished.
I could just stop now. The rest of the story is pretty routine. The turnpike took me to I-79, to US-422 to I-376 to State Road 18 right to the Hermitage store. I got two more 5 gallon buckets of paint and headed for home like a horse to the barn.
As she has so many times before, Hermione saved my bacon. Without her I would still be wandering around Pittsburgh.
Monday, January 9, 2012
The Road Less Marked
Today's road trip was one of those trips that make me happy to have a blog about trips. Especially delightful is the fact that Rand McNally was involved.
Today was Monday, after a 97-day weekend - my first day back at Sherwin Williams. As I went to hang up my coat, I glanced at the delivery boards. None at all, all week. I was disappointed, since deliveries are really the only part of the job I truly enjoy. So I mentioned it: "No deliveries," I said. "Oh yes there are!" said Diane the manager. So I was shown the three-deep pile of delivery orders and told that she and Carrie (the new 'third key' employee) had just about gotten them together. So I took all the trash in the building to the dumpster and returned to the front a while later. My mind was scrambling to remember how to enter delivery info into the computer and get the appropriate paperwork to print. The twenty gallons of laquer needed two bills of lading, always fun to diddle up. It took longer than it should have, but I got 'er done. Then I asked about the hand-written address on one order for a company callen N. D. Rustic Furniture. "Oh, Vinnie told him we'd deliver there today. Vinnie's out sick. I'll see if I can print you a map." A map might have been good.
So Diane went on her computer and came back with a set of directions from Rand McNally dot com. They were easy enough. Go out the main highway west to Perry Highway (where Route 19 turns south,) go twelve point six miles, turn right on Lake Road, go three miles and turn left on Dodge Road. Point seven miles later, you're there at 105 Dodge Road! Twenty point one miles total. Easy Peasy. So, I took my laquer, my paperwork and my directions and headed out.
I knew that if I took the much faster Interstate 79 to the next exit south, I'd be in the vicinity of my destination, so that's what I did. I got on Route 19 and kept a sharp lookout for Lake Road. And Whoa! There it was! I whizzed by it almost before I saw it. About a mile down the road I found a place to turn around. Back I went to Lake Road and turned. Keeping a close watch on the odometer, I looked for Dodge Road as three miles rolled up. No left turn there. There had been an unmatked dirt (ice and mud, really) road a few tenths earlier, and another a few tenths after, but I wasn't willing to set out into the woods on a sloppy road based on the vague hope of it being right. I pressed on. I reached the road to Atlantic and was sure now I'd gone too far.
I pulled over and whipped out my cell phone. Hurrah, there was a signal, even way out here in Amish country! I called the number without much hope. Amish customers often give a phone number of a neighbor or friend who really isn't much help when push comes to shove. This one rang six times and was picked up by an answering machine. I left a message, knowing full well that there was no point. I continued on, looking for a place to turn around, saw a couple of guys shingling a roof, and pulled in there.
"Hey," I called, "do you happen to know where Dodge Road is?" They didn't, but they said I should knock on the door and ask the residents. I did. They had not heard of Dodge Road, or N. D. Rustic Furniture, but they had computers up and running, so John invited me in to look at the detailed map he called up from somewhere. He showed me that there is another Lake Road down in Mercer County, in Sheakleyville. He showed me a convoluted series of secondary roads (paved??!) that would get me there. "And that is US 19 there." I thanked him very much and told him to come on down to Sherwin Williams for paint. "Say hello to Vinnie for us," he said. He's been there.
I eschewed the secondary roads and tore out for 19. I turned right, drove three miles to Sheakleyville, and kept a sharp watch out for Lake Road over in Mercer County. There were a couple of unmarked roads to the right, but no Lake Road. I pulled in to a gas station and went inside. Why yes, the mechanic under the car on the lift HAD heard of Dodge Road. "Just go back north on 19, and turn left at the Church of the Nazarene." I asked if it was unmarked. "Probably. But that's Lake Road. Turn left and go about five miles. If you come to County Line Road, you went too far, turn around and come back a ways." I thanked him very much and set out again. The road was indeed unmarked, but there were a couple of mail boxes in front of houses with numbers and Lake Road stickered on. At three miles there was a dirt road off to the left. I kept going until a few tenths later I came to County Line Road. I returned to the unmarked dirt road and turned right.
The first barn I came to had a mailbox out front that had '145 Dodge' stickered on it. Yay. I continued to the next barn, with a house set back at the end of a gravel driveway. There were no numbers anywhere, but there were an Amish mother and three-year-old boy walking toward the house. And there was a car parked in front! I turned into the driveway and, seeing no-one around the barn, headed for the house. The mother quickened her pace, as if she were afraid of me. I stopped way short and climbed out. "Excuse me," I said. "May I ask you a question?" She stopped and turned around. "I don't know if I'll know the answer," she replied. "I'm looking for 105 Dodge Road," I said. "This is it," she said. "N. D. Rustic Furniture?" I asked. "That's my husband," she said. Jackpot! She said I should put the laquer in the barn, and I did.
Rand McNally: 20.1 miles, fifty minutes. Reality: 43 miles, ninety three minutes. If the directions had said "Drive to Sheakleyville, turn right at the Church of the Nazarene and left at the last dirt road before County Line Road, things would have gone much smoother. Evidenly, Rand McNally doesn't know everything.
Today was Monday, after a 97-day weekend - my first day back at Sherwin Williams. As I went to hang up my coat, I glanced at the delivery boards. None at all, all week. I was disappointed, since deliveries are really the only part of the job I truly enjoy. So I mentioned it: "No deliveries," I said. "Oh yes there are!" said Diane the manager. So I was shown the three-deep pile of delivery orders and told that she and Carrie (the new 'third key' employee) had just about gotten them together. So I took all the trash in the building to the dumpster and returned to the front a while later. My mind was scrambling to remember how to enter delivery info into the computer and get the appropriate paperwork to print. The twenty gallons of laquer needed two bills of lading, always fun to diddle up. It took longer than it should have, but I got 'er done. Then I asked about the hand-written address on one order for a company callen N. D. Rustic Furniture. "Oh, Vinnie told him we'd deliver there today. Vinnie's out sick. I'll see if I can print you a map." A map might have been good.
So Diane went on her computer and came back with a set of directions from Rand McNally dot com. They were easy enough. Go out the main highway west to Perry Highway (where Route 19 turns south,) go twelve point six miles, turn right on Lake Road, go three miles and turn left on Dodge Road. Point seven miles later, you're there at 105 Dodge Road! Twenty point one miles total. Easy Peasy. So, I took my laquer, my paperwork and my directions and headed out.
I knew that if I took the much faster Interstate 79 to the next exit south, I'd be in the vicinity of my destination, so that's what I did. I got on Route 19 and kept a sharp lookout for Lake Road. And Whoa! There it was! I whizzed by it almost before I saw it. About a mile down the road I found a place to turn around. Back I went to Lake Road and turned. Keeping a close watch on the odometer, I looked for Dodge Road as three miles rolled up. No left turn there. There had been an unmatked dirt (ice and mud, really) road a few tenths earlier, and another a few tenths after, but I wasn't willing to set out into the woods on a sloppy road based on the vague hope of it being right. I pressed on. I reached the road to Atlantic and was sure now I'd gone too far.
I pulled over and whipped out my cell phone. Hurrah, there was a signal, even way out here in Amish country! I called the number without much hope. Amish customers often give a phone number of a neighbor or friend who really isn't much help when push comes to shove. This one rang six times and was picked up by an answering machine. I left a message, knowing full well that there was no point. I continued on, looking for a place to turn around, saw a couple of guys shingling a roof, and pulled in there.
"Hey," I called, "do you happen to know where Dodge Road is?" They didn't, but they said I should knock on the door and ask the residents. I did. They had not heard of Dodge Road, or N. D. Rustic Furniture, but they had computers up and running, so John invited me in to look at the detailed map he called up from somewhere. He showed me that there is another Lake Road down in Mercer County, in Sheakleyville. He showed me a convoluted series of secondary roads (paved??!) that would get me there. "And that is US 19 there." I thanked him very much and told him to come on down to Sherwin Williams for paint. "Say hello to Vinnie for us," he said. He's been there.
I eschewed the secondary roads and tore out for 19. I turned right, drove three miles to Sheakleyville, and kept a sharp watch out for Lake Road over in Mercer County. There were a couple of unmarked roads to the right, but no Lake Road. I pulled in to a gas station and went inside. Why yes, the mechanic under the car on the lift HAD heard of Dodge Road. "Just go back north on 19, and turn left at the Church of the Nazarene." I asked if it was unmarked. "Probably. But that's Lake Road. Turn left and go about five miles. If you come to County Line Road, you went too far, turn around and come back a ways." I thanked him very much and set out again. The road was indeed unmarked, but there were a couple of mail boxes in front of houses with numbers and Lake Road stickered on. At three miles there was a dirt road off to the left. I kept going until a few tenths later I came to County Line Road. I returned to the unmarked dirt road and turned right.
The first barn I came to had a mailbox out front that had '145 Dodge' stickered on it. Yay. I continued to the next barn, with a house set back at the end of a gravel driveway. There were no numbers anywhere, but there were an Amish mother and three-year-old boy walking toward the house. And there was a car parked in front! I turned into the driveway and, seeing no-one around the barn, headed for the house. The mother quickened her pace, as if she were afraid of me. I stopped way short and climbed out. "Excuse me," I said. "May I ask you a question?" She stopped and turned around. "I don't know if I'll know the answer," she replied. "I'm looking for 105 Dodge Road," I said. "This is it," she said. "N. D. Rustic Furniture?" I asked. "That's my husband," she said. Jackpot! She said I should put the laquer in the barn, and I did.
Rand McNally: 20.1 miles, fifty minutes. Reality: 43 miles, ninety three minutes. If the directions had said "Drive to Sheakleyville, turn right at the Church of the Nazarene and left at the last dirt road before County Line Road, things would have gone much smoother. Evidenly, Rand McNally doesn't know everything.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Texas Toast
Carmen's mother and father live in a beautiful house in a huge subdivision in Crosby, Texas, a bedroom community outside Houston. We've been there a few times here in The Gospel. We stopped there overnight on the way to the Grand Canyon in 1993. We and the cats stopped in for three days on the way to Albuquerque. I'm sure you remember.
Since they have lived there, they have added Carmen's younger sister Jamie to the household, as well as Jamie's daughter Brittany, now sixteen. Three years ago, Jamie's daughter Brooke was born, adding a lively new dynamic to an already quite dynamic household. So a few months ago they added a bulldog puppy, now five months old and forty pounds. His name is Shadow. He's big, he's a puppy.
On the day after Christmas, we flew to Houston, with a plane change in Philadelphia. To add to the adventure, we took advantage of a Hampton Inn offer: we spent the night there near Pittsburgh Airport, left our vehicle there and took the courtesy van to the airport. That way we didn't have to set out for the airport at 5:00am, and the cost was about the same as leaving the car in the airport parking garage. Win win, with one minor exception - as we approached the hotel we looked for something to eat at 5:00pm on Christmas Day. Nothing. Not McDonalds or Burger King or Cracker Barrel or Bob Evans or a grocery store or even a Walgreens. Nothing! We asked at the desk as we checked in. The only place they knew about was Domino's Pizza, a Republican stronghold. Eeeew. So we had a (damn it!) pretty durn yummy pizza for supper in our quite comfortable hotel room.
Overnight Carmen was overcome with the urge to purge, so she was able to eliminate one bag from our carry-on load. She left it in the car. Yay.
The courtesy van loaded us up at 6:30 in the morning and off we went to the Southwest Airlines ticketing entrance of the airport. Check-in was smooth, and even better when the agent told us we could each check a bag for free. Yay. Then came the dreaded Security hoo-ha. I knew it would be bad for me. Knee replacements set off the metal detectors, no question about it. So I was pulled aside and subjected to a full body pat-down, most of which time was spent reeling off a long list of disclaimers about where he was going to touch me, with what part of his hand and why. Jeez, man, just get on with it!
Carmen went up to the counter at the gate and secured a pre-boarding pass based on my recent knee replacement surgery. When we boarded the plane we saw the perfect spot on the Boeing 737. The first seats on the port side of the plane are behind a bulkhead, and the aisle seat sticks out farther than the bulkhead, giving me unlimited legroom. Perfect! Two planes there and two back, I got that seat on all four flights. Good ol' CarCar!
Three and a half hours in the Philadelphia airport went by fairly quickly. Then came the four-hour flight to Houston Hobby Airport. Good thing we ate a burger in Philly, because that jive sack of a dozen peanuts wasn't going to see us through to Texas. One really good thing, in my opinion: they've stopped rolling the stupid cart up and down the aisle. The attendant fills a tray with a load of beverages (pre-ordered by us) and walks it down the aisle. Much better.
Jamie picked us up at Passenger Pick-Up very soon after we picked up our bags at Baggage Claim. We rode in her big-ass Ford pickup with the extended cab, just one among many big-ass pickup trucks on the highways and byways of Houston. We're not in Pennsylvania any more, Toto.
Six days in a house with a teenager, a three-year-old, a forty pound puppy and a 72 inch television was quite a change for us. We missed our quiet house with our mostly relaxed kitties. The bestest bestest highlight of the week for me: we all (all but the dog) went out to an excellent Mexican restaurant on Thursday night. I know it was Thursday because Thursday is my evening shift as dispatcher for Tamarack Wildlife Rescue here in Saegertown, PA. The gig is to call the voicemail for messages, and deal with whatever messages there were. Up until that evening, the only message I had ever heard was, "There are no new messages in your mailbox." I was going to do it all by cellular phone, but there were very few spots in the house where I could get a signal. Then we went to the restaurant. I checked messages on the way there at 6:00 EST. No new messages. I checked at 7:00 EST as we were finishing dinner. A woman had called a few minutes after 6:00 EST to say that she had a raccoon in a trap in her ceiling and can somebody help her get it out because it's hissing and growling and stuff. This was my third time taking a shift for Tamarack, and my first time ever dealing with a situation, and I didn't have my notebook with me at the restaurant. The notebook has all the numbers to call for advice or action. It was near 8:00 EST by the time we got back to the house. I called for advice. The advice was: "We don't handle raccoons. Tell her to throw a thick blanket over the trap and pull it out of there. Open the trap outside with a long stick, and the coon will run away." She wasn't very happy with that advice, but understood that we aren't allowed to handle "rabies vector" species. Anyway, my part was fulfilled, there were no more messages, and my shift was over at 9:00 EST. And the Mexican dinner was excellent!
Saturday was preparing for the New Year's Eve cookout and fireworks extravaganza. I vacuumed inside the house and swept the back porch and the driveway. Jamie moved around the outdoor furniture and got firewood for the fire pit. Then she went out to buy more fireworks. Brittany straightened up the garage. Sandra prepped the bacon- wrapped vegetables and scallops for the grill. Olen played golf. The party started as darkness fell, and neighbors poured in from all around. The fireworks scared the piss out of the puppy, providing more clean-up opportunities inside the house because he sure as hell wasn't going outside! It went on until about 2:00am CST, long after I went to bed
Sunday morning I got up, made coffee and was given the unglamorous task of waking Jamie up. She wanted to drive us to the airport, four hours of sleep later. Sandra too wanted to ride along. She was in bed before midnight, so was in a better state of wakefulness. Brooke stayed asleep. Yay. Olen stayed with her.
Ticketing check-in was smooth once again, and security was not bad. Houston Hobby has the nekkid scanners, so I was directed in there as soon as I mentioned my knee replacement. Much quicker and much quieter. Three hours to Baltimore and 45 minutes to Pittsburgh, after an hour and a half layover, medical pre-boarding both legs. Carmen called the Hampton when we landed, and the van came just a few minutes after we went outside with our baggage. An hour after landing, we were in our car arguing with Hermione about the best way home. It was dark, it was raining, and the rain would soon turn to snow.
But Toto, we're not in Texas any more!
Since they have lived there, they have added Carmen's younger sister Jamie to the household, as well as Jamie's daughter Brittany, now sixteen. Three years ago, Jamie's daughter Brooke was born, adding a lively new dynamic to an already quite dynamic household. So a few months ago they added a bulldog puppy, now five months old and forty pounds. His name is Shadow. He's big, he's a puppy.
On the day after Christmas, we flew to Houston, with a plane change in Philadelphia. To add to the adventure, we took advantage of a Hampton Inn offer: we spent the night there near Pittsburgh Airport, left our vehicle there and took the courtesy van to the airport. That way we didn't have to set out for the airport at 5:00am, and the cost was about the same as leaving the car in the airport parking garage. Win win, with one minor exception - as we approached the hotel we looked for something to eat at 5:00pm on Christmas Day. Nothing. Not McDonalds or Burger King or Cracker Barrel or Bob Evans or a grocery store or even a Walgreens. Nothing! We asked at the desk as we checked in. The only place they knew about was Domino's Pizza, a Republican stronghold. Eeeew. So we had a (damn it!) pretty durn yummy pizza for supper in our quite comfortable hotel room.
Overnight Carmen was overcome with the urge to purge, so she was able to eliminate one bag from our carry-on load. She left it in the car. Yay.
The courtesy van loaded us up at 6:30 in the morning and off we went to the Southwest Airlines ticketing entrance of the airport. Check-in was smooth, and even better when the agent told us we could each check a bag for free. Yay. Then came the dreaded Security hoo-ha. I knew it would be bad for me. Knee replacements set off the metal detectors, no question about it. So I was pulled aside and subjected to a full body pat-down, most of which time was spent reeling off a long list of disclaimers about where he was going to touch me, with what part of his hand and why. Jeez, man, just get on with it!
Carmen went up to the counter at the gate and secured a pre-boarding pass based on my recent knee replacement surgery. When we boarded the plane we saw the perfect spot on the Boeing 737. The first seats on the port side of the plane are behind a bulkhead, and the aisle seat sticks out farther than the bulkhead, giving me unlimited legroom. Perfect! Two planes there and two back, I got that seat on all four flights. Good ol' CarCar!
Three and a half hours in the Philadelphia airport went by fairly quickly. Then came the four-hour flight to Houston Hobby Airport. Good thing we ate a burger in Philly, because that jive sack of a dozen peanuts wasn't going to see us through to Texas. One really good thing, in my opinion: they've stopped rolling the stupid cart up and down the aisle. The attendant fills a tray with a load of beverages (pre-ordered by us) and walks it down the aisle. Much better.
Jamie picked us up at Passenger Pick-Up very soon after we picked up our bags at Baggage Claim. We rode in her big-ass Ford pickup with the extended cab, just one among many big-ass pickup trucks on the highways and byways of Houston. We're not in Pennsylvania any more, Toto.
Six days in a house with a teenager, a three-year-old, a forty pound puppy and a 72 inch television was quite a change for us. We missed our quiet house with our mostly relaxed kitties. The bestest bestest highlight of the week for me: we all (all but the dog) went out to an excellent Mexican restaurant on Thursday night. I know it was Thursday because Thursday is my evening shift as dispatcher for Tamarack Wildlife Rescue here in Saegertown, PA. The gig is to call the voicemail for messages, and deal with whatever messages there were. Up until that evening, the only message I had ever heard was, "There are no new messages in your mailbox." I was going to do it all by cellular phone, but there were very few spots in the house where I could get a signal. Then we went to the restaurant. I checked messages on the way there at 6:00 EST. No new messages. I checked at 7:00 EST as we were finishing dinner. A woman had called a few minutes after 6:00 EST to say that she had a raccoon in a trap in her ceiling and can somebody help her get it out because it's hissing and growling and stuff. This was my third time taking a shift for Tamarack, and my first time ever dealing with a situation, and I didn't have my notebook with me at the restaurant. The notebook has all the numbers to call for advice or action. It was near 8:00 EST by the time we got back to the house. I called for advice. The advice was: "We don't handle raccoons. Tell her to throw a thick blanket over the trap and pull it out of there. Open the trap outside with a long stick, and the coon will run away." She wasn't very happy with that advice, but understood that we aren't allowed to handle "rabies vector" species. Anyway, my part was fulfilled, there were no more messages, and my shift was over at 9:00 EST. And the Mexican dinner was excellent!
Saturday was preparing for the New Year's Eve cookout and fireworks extravaganza. I vacuumed inside the house and swept the back porch and the driveway. Jamie moved around the outdoor furniture and got firewood for the fire pit. Then she went out to buy more fireworks. Brittany straightened up the garage. Sandra prepped the bacon- wrapped vegetables and scallops for the grill. Olen played golf. The party started as darkness fell, and neighbors poured in from all around. The fireworks scared the piss out of the puppy, providing more clean-up opportunities inside the house because he sure as hell wasn't going outside! It went on until about 2:00am CST, long after I went to bed
Sunday morning I got up, made coffee and was given the unglamorous task of waking Jamie up. She wanted to drive us to the airport, four hours of sleep later. Sandra too wanted to ride along. She was in bed before midnight, so was in a better state of wakefulness. Brooke stayed asleep. Yay. Olen stayed with her.
Ticketing check-in was smooth once again, and security was not bad. Houston Hobby has the nekkid scanners, so I was directed in there as soon as I mentioned my knee replacement. Much quicker and much quieter. Three hours to Baltimore and 45 minutes to Pittsburgh, after an hour and a half layover, medical pre-boarding both legs. Carmen called the Hampton when we landed, and the van came just a few minutes after we went outside with our baggage. An hour after landing, we were in our car arguing with Hermione about the best way home. It was dark, it was raining, and the rain would soon turn to snow.
But Toto, we're not in Texas any more!
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