Our Trip

“Live” Blogging

We picked up the flower arrangements we forgot earlier and saw Charlie and Bethany eating pizza and watching a movie. That means everything is normal over at SIL’s house.

We topped off the tank before hitting the highway. While George was filling up, I called D to check of Hannah. Poor thing was traumatized. She screamed for me when we put her in D’s can earlier. (She was woken up during the transfer and never wakes up well without me.) She cried all the way to Wal-mart and then fell asleep all the way to Hymera. She was woken up to get in the house and cried again for a bit. She eventually calmed down and just looked around.

D kept asking her if she had to potty and she kept saying “No.” I forgot to tell her that “No” means “Yes” and “Uh-uh” means ‘No.” So, while D kept asking and Hannah kept saying no, she pooped all up her back and down her legs. Poor thing got all upset over being changed and cleaned up, but was fine once she was cleaned up.

THEN, being calm and happy again, one of the girls closed her fingers in a door. As a result, she (understandably) starts crying again.

She has had a very rough few hours so far. I also know that is this was going on at SIL, she would be very stressed and very frazzled. Thankfully, D can handle all the drama that Hannah throws at her. D also said that next time, we should bring all three because her girls don’t get the whole “parallel play” and are getting frustrated that Hannah is not playing WITH them and is instead playing ALONG SIDE them.  

I was told that she did eat quite a bit at dinner. More than the other girls. After the poop that was described to me, I am not surprised. She probably hit an eject button in anticipation of dinner.


It is 8:00pm and we are pulling out of Cloverdale with a full belly and smelling of smoke. The truckstop, while having good food does not have a separate section for non-smoking customers. Oh, well.  

As a tourist attraction, we did see a Lot Lizard getting very comfortable and using modern technology to negotiate prices. She takes the trucker’s phone, texts the prices in, and then the trucker deletes it. No trace of where it came from or sent to because there was no sending or receiving. It’s good to see the oldest profession able to keep up with the times.  

My lungs still hurt from being in the restaurant. I am thankful the children were not with us. I am going to be feeling the smoke for a while. With the way the children have been, they probably would have been very sick. The Libertarian part of me says “Their business, their choice.” The part of me that is suffering the effects of just having been in there and having children who have been sick recently cheers for anti-smoking in public places laws. There is always the choice of “I choose not to frequent your establishment because of the smoke” but if you don’t know the establishment or the area and there isn’t a whole lot around, what then?

I will mull this over while I cough up the smoke I was forced by circumstance to breathe in.



It’s going on 9:00 here and we will be switching out soon.
Observations concerning having a CB on hand while driving.
You hear about accidents ahead of time and can get around.
You hear about bears.
You hear about “ladies” selling “pillows” out of the back of her truck behind the Pilot station.



We crossed over into Ohio ae 9:50pm. The speed limit dropped to 65mph. We are maintaining the speed limit using cruise control. There are bears all over the place. They keep popping up every 15 to 20 miles. Sometimes two at a sitting. It is not surprising given the economy. Budget cuts and drop in property taxes (both in lack of property owners and in putting a cap on the property taxes (such as Indiana) has forced many services to take a financial hit. Not just the public library (local issue) but also in many other public service areas such as police and fire departments. Many places are trying to keep the revenue for their services and avoid personel cuts by increasing fines in speeding, issuing more tickets, and giving tickets that people would not get ticketed for in the past. (Littering and jay walking.) We are already wary enough since we are not carrying. (New York does not allow for peaceable travel.) So we are trying to keep a lower profile than usual. We don’t need to be hit with a ticket. (Easy ticket that won’t be argued? Hit an out of state driver/ They pay by mail or drive several hundred miles to argue a ticket that they may or may not get out of.)

The economy has interesting ways of manifesting itself. Our local library does not have late fees. The library (due to budget cuts because of a cap on property taxes) is having financial problems. Mention late fees and everyone is up in arms.  

So, people complain when they pay thousands of dollars in property taxes. That gets taken care of and the possibility of being forced to take financial responsibility for not turning something in by its due date and it is unjust and unfair.

If you don’t want to pay late fees, don’t return books late. But if you do and you have to pay late fees, look at it as helping out a local establishment that is designed to educate our children and provide FREE reading and research material for public use.

If you don’t want a speeding ticket (and I am the first to admit that I have a lead foot that I am working on taming) then don’t speed. If you get busted for speeding and the ticket is accurate (you were doing 58 in a 40 and the ticket says you were doing 58 in a 40) then own up and pay it. And think of it as putting money back into the community.

These are just my late night thoughts as I am going down the road.



It is 1:41am and we are still going down the road. I dozed for an hour or so and in my sleep listened to the CB quietly buzzing listening to the truckers talk about everything from the economy to Obama (so far all of them are anti-Obama) to calling out yardsticks and bears and accidents and 4-wheelers on the side.  

We are finally off of 71 and are now on 271. We’ll be on 90 in half an hour or so.

At this pace, we will definitely be at the burial early. It will give us time to nap f we need to. Although I did doze a bit, I have a hard time sleeping in a vehicle when it is moving. Yes, I have issues. I’m working on it.

I did just feel something I have not felt in a long time. I felt the atmospheric pressure change. It used to be I never noticed it unless we were in the mountains. But having been a flat-lander for so long now, I’m noticing it in the smaller hills of eastern Ohio. Interesting.

Well, I am going yo shut down now until we are recharged unless something interesting happens. I’m down to 30% on the battery so I am going to save it.



It is almost 4:00 and we are cruising Erie, PA looking for Lake Erie and the Indian Reservation so that we can get gas. This is one thing we miss about living in the Buffalo, NY area. Indian Reservations and cheap gas. We are following 20 around. It has been 10 years so we are kind of fuzzy about which exit we should have gotten off at. I got off when he told me, but it was too soon so he took over and I am pretty sure got off too soon again. We do know that 20 will take us to where we want to go.



It is now 9:30am and we’ve had breakfast, went to the grave site, saw it marked out to be dug, visited the different places we used to go and where George used to live or spend much of his time, and found a McDonald’s where I can post this. And apparently, McDonald’s here does not have free wifi. I have to provide a credit card to connect. That’s not happening. This can all be posted later. In the mean time, I am going to drink coffee and enjoy my sleep-deprived mental state.




It is now 2:00pm. MIL is buried next to her husband and even though everything concerning this had been pre-paid, we did not have paperwork with us stating this even though we were assured at the other end that there was nothing to worry about. We are going to be sent a bill for close to $100 since we had a burial service (what was paid for) instead of a mausoleum service. (What they are saying was paid for, but not what was wanted, implied, or had anyone in the family ever had. Her plot was paid for years ago to be next to her husband. Everything was paid for. Digging up the grave, putting her in, and filling it back in. All paid for. Until we see the paperwork at the other end, all we can do is speculate that because it was paid for years ago in full, they are trying to get the difference between that price and today’s price. Supposedly, this came up “over the week-end.” They could have called us over the week-end. They could have called us yesterday before we left. Instead, this comes up out of the blue today while we are sitting there. And we had been sitting there for quite a while before it was even mentioned. And it wasn’t even mentioned to us. It was mentioned to some other employee with us sitting there to over hear. I wonder what would have happened had we not been there to witness as we vowed we would.

Anyway, after the burial, we gave our numbers and other contact information to the two other couples that showed. We chatted for a few minutes. We’ll see if they stay in contact.

After we left, we went to lunch to a place called Nestor’s where I had Texas Red Hots and George had Slovakia. While eating, a friend’s husband called to let me know about a thyroid surgery. She is groggy, but she came through it ok. I’ll be calling tomorrow to check on her. And that brings us up to date.




It is 6:30pm and we’re entering Wayne County, Ohio. The truckers are being weird. Normal weird, but weird. One guy is trying to sell flashlights (without innuendo amazingly enough) and another is just droning on about who knows what. At least I haven’t heard from any Lot Lizards yet. Although, it is still early.  

We’ve been talking about when to visit Buffalo again with the children and both of us got the feeling that today was as much of a good-bye to Buffalo as much as it was a good-bye to his mother.




We got home around 1:30am. We hit rain the last few hours. It was bad with the high winds and the rain coming down so hard it was difficult to see.

I am thankful that we were able to go and thankful that we made it back safely.