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Connecticut River Valley, New England, United States

Sunday, March 30, 2014

The Last Leg of our Fabulous Journey

Sunday March 30, 2014 Executive Suite!! 130 Comfort Inn Erie Pennsylvania 5:40 PM EST

As you may recall we decided to spend two nights in Bowling Green, especially since we had a hot tub and a nice big comfortable room. Friday, dawned rainy and foggy but by afternoon the sun had broken through and the clouds were huge puffy and tall but all in all the day was quite nice. We read and in general reveled in what we felt would be our last Southern warm day. The weather looked as though it was going to move out ahead of us and by staying the extra day we hoped to assure ourselves of clear driving the rest of the way home. I started The Devil’s Backbone : The Story of the Natchez Trace. It is very interesting but is slow paced and the author throws in not only the names of the people who traveled the Trace and their enterprises but also their ancestry complete with names and locations. There is no sense trying to read the book quickly because it only leads to confusion and back tracking to clear it up. It is not difficult reading, just slow.

On Saturday we woke up to rather heavy rain—the Weather channel had said it would be well past us and the USA Today maps showed the whole area clear. Well, so much for trusting anything you hear on TV or read in the papers. We had the most hellacious rain and wind and horrible driving from Bowling Green all the way to Cincinnati. I amused myself by playing tag with the windshield wipers—how many pictures could I take between swipes? As you can see I was successful more times than I thought possible. Needless to say, with the rain and the mist from the trucks I didn’t take many shots. Notice, though, that the weather has become cold enough that I’ve put away my sandals and am again in sneakers. It was in Cincinnati on the way South that I first put on my sandals and also gave up my sweaters. I haven’t dug them out yet, but I think I’m about to do so tomorrow.  The traffic was quite heavy especially across the Ohio from Covington, Ky into Cincinnati, Ohio, Haven’t a clue where the Ohio welcome sign was—probably obscured by some truck or other.  After dinner at Applebee’s we retired early—both of us quite tired from a stressful day on the road.

Fortunately, today dawned cold but bright with sunshine. We didn’t see any snow until some distance north of Cincinnati and then it was very little and obviously had been dropped yesterday.  We stopped at a rest area and could see how the wind blew it –even up the trunks of the trees. I was able to remember where some of the Ohio barns were this time so I could add pictures of them to my collection. It wasn’t too hard to drive through Columbus even though there was enough traffic—it is pretty much a straight shot. Up around Mansfield we began to see significant snow—and it is fresh. Looks as though that extra day in Bowling Green was good after all. Instead of the torrential rain we would have been far enough north to hit the snowfall. I’d rather have the rain and so would Bill.

There is a good loop road around Cleveland so we really don’t have too much of that traffic. Although we had planned on making Batavia today we decided to stop in Erie—we’d still covered over 300 miles. It will be a long haul to Barbara’s in Saratoga tomorrow but we’ll head out early. She says there is supposed to be a wintry mix in the morning near her. Our weather seems to show clear and partly cloudy along our route==of course, there are no guarantees.

Bill will stay at Barb’s Monday night and then go on home and I’ll spend a few days with her before heading back to Vermont. I like to delay it as long as possible—mud season, leftover dirty snow, flooding in the fields—not in any hurry to see that. For tonight we have a four room suite with another hot tub. Sounds like a plan for me—then Call the Midwife, Selfridges and ,if I can, I’ll fit in the Good Wife otherwise I’ll stream it later in the week. So, the next missive you will all receive will be my summary with which I always end our trips but it won’t be until I’ve been in Vermont for a bit—there is mail to be opened, unpacking to do etc, etc,etc. Til then, thanks for coming along with us on our journey. Hope you enjoyed it as much as we have and that you will join us again the next time we hit the road!  Night all KandB

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