A Weekend in and around Philadelphia

We just had an almost perfect weekend in the Philadelphia area. The trigger was our friend Joel’s birthday party, which was indeed the best part of it.

On Friday, we drove from the Washington ‘burbs up to Haddonfield, NJ, just outside of Philadelphia. We stayed at the Haddonfield Inn, which is where we usually stay when visiting that area. And we keep going back because we love the place. Friday night, we had dinner at Kitchen 233, which was new to us. I had the Angry Shrimp Pasta, and I loved it so much that if we go back, I’m having it again. Dave had salmon of some sort, which he also enjoyed. For dessert, the chocolate souffle is worth the 11-minute wait.

Saturday, we headed to Camden, NJ, and the waterfront, in order to visit the New Jersey Aquarium, now known as Adventure Aquarium . (If I have the story right, the state of New Jersey established the aquarium, then privatized it.) We really liked it. My favorite exhibit was the hippo environment, which stood out for several reasons. First, finally someone is acknowledging that hippos are aquatic animals! Yes, they’re mammals. So are whales. Hippos spend an enormous amount of time in water, and the West African River exhibit features them as the centerpiece. The two young females are frisky and playful, and a joy to watch. We also liked the birds in that room, because they were building nests all over the place, often flying overhead with pieces of straw.

What I didn’t like were the people shoving strollers into crowds, especially the woman mindlessly shoving her enormous SUV of a stroller into the legs of a cluster of people who had nowhere to go. Ninety percent of the stroller-parents used their brains and maneuvered around sanely, allowing their kids to see the exhibits without being rude to everyone else. The other 10 percent of the stroller-parents shouldn’t have been allowed to breed.

Saturday night was the big event, Joel’s birthday party at Marra’s in South Philadelphia. Joel paid for the whole thing and stayed away from the banquet menu, instead providing antipasti, mussels, pizzas, chicken cacciatore, and birthday cake for all of us. The food was excellent, and the server kept her cool with our large table of about 22 or so (we weren’t that demanding, but it’s still a lot of people). The best part, though, was that guests came in from all over — Dallas, Boston, New York, the Washington DC area, and Jacksonville, FL. Joel himself is living in California now, but wanted to party with his East Coast friends. And I knew most of these people from a fantasy baseball league they’d been in with Dave in the 1980s and early 1990s. It’s a good bunch, it was great to see them again, and I miss them already.

We drove home on Sunday, stopping off in Swedesboro, NJ, to have a quick lunch with some of Dave’s relatives. This was also the virgin weekend drive for Dave’s new Prius, which is definitely worth the fuss. At the time he first added gas, the mileage came to 52.07/mph. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Does the Dog Die? A Brief Review of Telex from Cuba, by Rachel Kushner

My first “real” job out of college was working as a white-collar minion for United Fruit, back when they were based in Boston. Of course, this was long after the company had been expelled from Cuba in the late 1950s, but I knew they had a dark and difficult past. One of the things I love about Telex from Cuba is how it tells that very story. Kushner writes with such skill and grace that it’s almost impossible to believe that this is a first novel.

Told from multiple points of view — including through the eyes of a few children, which I normally don’t like but which works well here — Telex begins by slowly laying out the background of the privileged few, who were white, American, and often brutal. Compassion was not a value in the company towns of Preston and Nicaro. Kushner then layers on the stories of the workers, who were essentially slaves, and the rebels, along with some of those operating along the sides. The latter include an unethical Frenchman and an erotic dancer. Add Batista, the Castro brothers, and grave doubts about those introduced earlier, and you have a roiling, boiling tale of pain, anger, and revolution.

Most of us only know Cuba as this strange and forbidden island to the south of the United States. Kushner offers a vivid and exciting history lesson that adds many necessary dimensions. I recommend this book very highly, with one caveat.

And here is the caveat: one of the primary purposes of this blog is to screen books for people who can’t stand to read about violence to animals, sad animal scenes, etc. If violence against animals bothers you so much that it’s a criteria in choosing what and what not to read, then you can’t read this book. It is COMPLETELY UNSAFE for animal lovers. I found it quite disturbing in that regard, and there’s so much of it that I can’t isolate pages to skip or otherwise give advice that might make it readable for animal lovers.  Birds, pigs, monkeys, you name it, the species probably does very poorly in this book. I loved Kushner’s writing and, especially, storytelling abilities. And I hope she dials back the animal violence and neglect in future efforts.

Does the Dog Die? A Brief Review of Assassination Vacation, by Sarah Vowell

Third cranky book review, and least cranky of the three:  I read this for my book group with no previous knowledge of Sarah Vowell. I don’t listen to public radio because I don’t listen to talk radio of any kind, so even though she’s a contributor to This American Life, she was completely new to me.

 And as she narrated this nonfiction tour of presidential assassination sites, I began viewing her as two people: Good Sarah and Bad Sarah. I’d say she had an evil twin, but she has a real-life twin who shows up occasionally. Anyway, Bad Sarah was a self-absorbed flake who took advantage of her friends because she was cute! And adorable! And isn’t it cute! and adorable! how Bad Sarah expects them to do all sorts of unreasonable “favors” for her just because she is who she is? Well, no. I didn’t buy Bad Sarah’s act. She was massively annoying and had no endearing traits at all. Unfortunately, she also narrated the first part of the book, in which Bad Sarah grates on my every last nerve as she expects her friends to drive her hither and yon so that she can gaze at Lincoln assassination memorabilia that are at about the fourth degree of obscurity.

 In the book group, this observation led to a lively debate on friendship. One person said that you just hang out with your friends and go along with what they want to do, like they do for you. I believe if you want to spend time with a friend, you do activities that are agreed upon, negotiated, or made optional. Like, if you want to see a movie I don’t want to see, I’ll meet you afterwards for dinner or something, but not see the movie with you. This also explained something about the person who made the comment about hanging out. A few years ago, she about hanging out with a friend of hers who spent half the day chasing down discounted chicken wings for a party he’d planned. And she went along with him and was bored out of her skull. But I would not take a friend along on my Odious Chores, nor would I go with them on theirs. It gets down to what another member of the group calls “the Unwilling Accomplice.” Bad Sarah always has to have an Unwilling Accomplice in her stories; it’s part of her shtick. I think all accomplices should be willing, but my stories are different from hers. I’m very independent and don’t always need an accomplice. And that is something I like about myself. In fact, it’s something l like about myself A LOT.

 Anyway, enough about all that. Good Sarah knows her history and writes more about it than herself. Good Sarah yanked the Lincoln story away from Bad Sarah, and kept the Garfield and McKinley stories to herself. Good Sarah has her playful side, especially when explaining how Robert Todd Lincoln was a sort of jinx. She tells about what happened with Ford’s Theater after Lincoln’s assassination, gives us some insight into the evolution of the Republican Party, and touches on everything from American cults to totem poles to statues.

I’ll recommend this book to American history buffs who think they can bear with Bad Sarah’s narcissism for a while. It doesn’t last that long, certainly less than one-third of the book.

 As for animals, there are a couple of unpleasant images, but they are fleeting. So I will declare this book SAFE for animal lovers.

Vacation Part Six: Yellowstone Days 3 and 4

Let’s get the big disappointment out of the way. When Mom visited Yellowstone in 1985, and when Dave and I visited in 1998, one of the most beautiful parts of the park was the Minerva Terrace at Mammoth Hot Springs, which had these beautiful layered pools. But when we visited this time, these pools were all dry. It was really sad, even though the water has apparently bubbled up elsewhere.

So we drove on to the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, which provided this shot of the Yellowstone River and its falls:

 

Then we were off to visit the larger part of Norris Hot Springs. Here are some photos, including one of Mom and her trekking pole:

The little geyser below is called Whirligig. I remember watching it for a very long time when we visited in 1998 — it just doesn’t stop:

Then, on Day 4, my camera, which had been acting increasingly flaky, started blurring things. We saw — and I took photos of — elk, pronghorn antelope, mountain goats, bison, and other animals. They were all blurred. I don’t take blurry pictures. I’ll go years without a blur. Then all of a sudden, it’s all blurred. So I’m going to be getting a new camera, and I don’t have much usable from Day 4. But we took a 2.3 mile hike along a portion of Yellowstone Lake, and I do have a couple of photos of that. First is a submerged boardwalk! Yes, there was a warning sign at the beginning of the trail. I still find this amusing.

Mom took this one of me and Dave:

The rest of the photos from the hike are blurry, which is too bad because there are some gorgeous mountains on the other side of the lake.

Years ago I realized that I was perfectly capable of viewing an entire vacation through a camera lens, and resolved not to. The camera breakdown on this trip makes me glad I adopted that approach, because I had a great time with Dave and my mom. I’m glad we did it. Thanks, Dave and Mom.

Next up, a return to book reviews.

Vacation Part Five: Yellowstone Day 2

When Mom visited Yellowstone in 1985, she and my dad just drove in, got a room at Old Faithful Lodge, and stayed 5 days. Now? In-park lodging requires that you make reservations months in advance. Also, Dave and I neither one remember how long we were in the park in 1998, but we did about half again as much as we did this time, so I’m thinking it had to be 5 days minimum, probably 6. Anyway, Mom’s favorite memory was of Old Faithful. So that was our destination on the morning of Day 2.

Old Faithful doesn’t go off every hour the way it used to. Now, it’s anywhere from 80 to 100 minutes. But our timing was perfect: we saw three eruptions. This sequence of photos, from the first one eruption, is typical.

Cool, huh? There are other “geothermal features” near Old Faithful, including this boiling pool.

These things all smell of sulfur, by the way. By time we left the Old Faithful area, it was mid-afternoon. Our next stop was the Norris Geyser Basin, which is my personal favorite. The Basin is divided into two parts. We went into the smaller Porcelain Basin on Day 2. It was chilly that day, making it perfect for the heat generated by Norris’s thermal pools. I just love this area!

The pictures are loading slowly, so I’m going to stop now and blog about the remainder of the trip in my next two posts, probably on 7/23 and 7/26.

Vacation Part Four: Yellowstone Day 1

So this was the main event! Mom wanted to go back to Yellowstone, having been there in 1985. Dave and I were there once before as well, in 1998. Yes, it was time to go back. So we drove from Jackson, WY, through Grand Teton National Park and into Yellowstone National Park. And before I leave the topic of Grand Teton, I want to urge you to drive up (or down) the east side of the park at some point or another. There’s not really anything to get out and do, but wow, the mountains are breathtaking, and you get a completely different view of them.

Anyway … We stayed just outside the north entrance, in Gardiner, WY, at the Gardiner Guest House, a reasonably priced B&B with fabulous breakfasts and charming, informative hosts. I loved this place! There are also some decent-to-excellent restaurants. Our favorite was Pedalino’s Italian restaurant.

But we entered Yellowstone National Park from the south, and all this is towards the north. So let me at least attempt to be linear and go back to where we entered. There were huge fires engulfing most of Yellowstone in 1988, burning thousands of acres of trees. Now, fire is a good thing in that it renews the forests, etc., etc. In 1998, there were all these short little shrubby trees that were part of that renewal, and they were going to grow up and be tall and take over the land where the forests had burned and it was going to be a good thing. And in 2009 … I expected the short little shrubby trees to be taller. Sort of like a 16-year-old kid looks mostly like an adult but not entirely? Well, these trees looked more like 10-year-old kids. Not babies or toddlers, not wee little things that make you think “oh, how cute,” but not out of childhood, either. Sort of in that gangly phase, you know? So there’s this whole park full of gangly-phased young trees. Which is fine and good and the way the world should work. I’m just noting it. You want magnificent, towering evergreens? Go somewhere else. Here, you’ve got mid-sized biodiversity. And maybe not all that diverse, since it seems like the trees that burned propagated themselves quite nicely and there’s mostly one tree species in Yellowstone. That’s all I’m saying. It’s not a criticism or a value judgment.

Okay, so now that I’ve dug that hole for myself, let’s talk about West Thumb. West Thumb refers to the western branch of Lake Yellowstone (or Yellowstone Lake, or whatever its official name is). And here there be geysers! Okay, not so much geysers as hot springs, though there are some geysers there, too. It’s all very pretty, along the edge of the lake:

Pretty, huh? So then we drove up the east side of the park, past a bunch of things we planned to visit the next day, and into a massive traffic jam for … a black bear! Now, Dave and I can drive 2.5 hours to Shenandoah National Park and see approximately two black bears a day. And, ironically, we drove past a very-close-to-the-road grizzly bear shortly past the black bear traffic jam, but the mobs weren’t there.

And I do have to say this, because Dave and I have made avoiding crowds into the First Commandment of vacation planning: June, or at least this June, wasn’t very crowded at Yellowstone. And visitation was up from June of last year, according to the official figures. So if you can’t go in May or September (our previous trip was in September), June isn’t crazy busy there. We were pretty happy with our timing.

Next up: Yellowstone Day 2 (and possibly Days 3 and 4).

Vacation Part Three: The Grand Tetons

Between the Idaho cousins and Yellowstone lies Grand Teton National Park. And so we spent a couple of days there. My camera began dying in the Grand Tetons, and we met our first dud park ranger (ever!) there. When I enter a national park, I like to head straight to the visitor center and discuss trails — trails we’re contemplating, trails we’ve never heard of and the ranger recommends, trails that might be closed because of bear activity or whatever (we encountered “whatever” in Yellowstone), etc. And in Grand Teton, one of the visitor center rangers didn’t want to have that discussion, because he was much more interested in looking at a colleague’s “tetons.” But we managed fine without him. We found out from another ranger that the hike from Jenny Lake to Hidden Falls is classified as “easy.”

And this is where we made our first mistake. There’s easy, and then there’s level. When you’re hiking with  a 76-year-old woman, level is better than easy, and trekking poles always help. But we left our trekking poles in the rental car and set out for Hidden Falls.

We took a boat across Jenny Lake, a smallish body of water at the southern end of the park.

From there, we took a gently ascending trail up about a mile or so to Hidden Falls. This would have been simple had the trail not had scree. But it did have scree, so we ended up holding Mom’s hand to steady her on occasion. Still, Hidden Falls is gorgeous, as you can see:

After descending, we grabbed a quick lunch and headed up to Jackson Lake, which is much bigger than Jenny Lake. There, we had ice cream (who knew Mom had such a jones for ice cream?) and walked along the lake for a bit, this time arming my mother with a trekking pole: 

And there were lots of mountains. Lots and lots of mountains:

 

Then the camera began dying. But before then, we saw a load of beautiful scenery and wildlife (especially pronghorn antelope), got out into the mountains, and stayed at a nice little motel in Jackson, ate well, and probably all three hoped that the rest of the trip would go as well.

Next up: Yellowstone!

Sorry for the Interruption: The Great Camera Crisis of 2009 — Vacation Part Two: Idaho to Wyoming

Now that Dave has recovered some of the pictures I took, I can post them.

This is Stephen, Mom, me, Joyce, and Sam. Please ignore the baby — I don’t believe in posting pictures of minor children but broke that rule this time.

Next, we visited my cousin Sandra. This is a picture of Dave, Sandra’s son-in-law Matt, Sandra, and Joyce standing near Matt’s work area. Matt makes really cool rough-hewn furniture, and I wish he had a website.

 

This is Dave’s favorite picture of Mom, holding one of Sandra’s dogs:

And I just love this picture for the sky:

Last but not least, we visited my cousin David and his family. This is a shot of me, Mom, Joyce, and David, the “just right” cousin:

But then we were off on our own adventures. There is a scenic highway, Route 89, that goes from around Logan, Utah, to near Jackson, WY. I took lots of pictures when we pulled over, and I’ll let them stand alone:

Next up: The Grand Tetons!

Goldilocks and the Three Cousins — Vacation Part Two: Utah and Idaho

Some family history for context: Mom’s younger brother, Ross, married his high school sweetheart, Joyce, when they were both 18. This was back in the 1950s, when such things were closer to the norm. After a few years, Ross and Joyce had a baby, then moved from their hometown in Illinois to Colorado, where they had two more babies. Then they moved to Idaho, the kids grew up, Ross tragically died of cancer in his late 40s, Joyce remarried a nice guy named Sam, the kids married, at least one of the kids divorced and remarried, they all converted from Catholicism to Mormonism, they all had a bunch of children, two now have grandchildren or step-grandchildren, and they all stayed in Idaho. The last I saw of them was in Colorado, when we were all children. Mom stayed in touch with Joyce, however, so when we began planning this trip, a visit to Joyce, Sam, and the Idaho cousins became part of the itinerary.

I wasn’t sure how this was going to go down. I even fretted about it, because I that’s one of the things I do best — fret. But realistically, I figured we’d end up somewhere between a disaster and a fairy tale. It was closer to a fairy tale: Goldilocks and the Three Bears, to be specific. Cousin #1 was too perfect, Cousin #2 was too … something, and Cousin #3 was just right! The cousins are aligned by the order in which we visited them, which is not birth order.

However, first we visited Joyce and Sam. As you may recall from the previous post, Dave and I arrived hellishly late and Joyce had to meet Mom at the airport. So they had a nice morning reconnecting and talking about my late Uncle Ross and bonding and all that, while Dave and I tried to recover from our travel ordeal. We then drove from Salt Lake City to Sam and Joyce’s home close to the Utah/Idaho border, and officially began the “visiting relatives” portion of the trip. I can’t say enough good things about Sam and Joyce as hosts. They were wonderfully generous and cordial. Sam is incredibly easy to get along with, and Joyce fell all over herself trying to make us feel at home.

Then it was off to visit Cousin #1 in Idaho Falls. I have pictures, but there were major camera issues during this trip and so I do not have access to those pictures yet. They’ll be posted eventually, although I don’t post pictures of minor children, so it will just be the adults. So why did I deem Cousin #1 “too perfect”? That’s said with quite a bit of admiration, but also a sense that he’s not someone I’d hang out with if we lived in the same city. Different styles, different values, different modes of being. He’s a good guy, I like his wife, I’m sure the 5 boys — 4 of whom are 8 or younger — will grow up to be delightful young men, etc., etc. But really, their house is astonishingly neat and clean with no household help and all those children. This is mind-boggling. There’s a lot of regimentation in their home, which I suppose is necessary with that many children. Also, Cousin #1 gets Masters degrees as a sort of hobby, and his wife takes Serious Classes. I admire this to no end. They are like Vulcans. And I am no Vulcan. We had a lovely visit, we ate pizza, and I left hoping that one of the other two cousins would be from my planet.

Cousin #2 is from my planet, but we don’t speak the same language. We visited her the next day. She lives in a modular home (used to be called trailers, but they really are modular homes) on a vast ranch with her husband and a few of their children. Two of her sons live in a house that the rest of the family abandoned due to sewer issues, but they come by each night for dinner. And a married daughter with children lives a short distance away. There are many dogs, some of which are “indoor” dogs and some of which are “outdoor” dogs. The younger daughter is 18 and in a 2-year program that will give her some kind of certificate deeming her beyond great with horses. She loves it, and hopes to work on a dude ranch some day handling the horses, possibly in Colorado. Dave and I liked her best, which seemed to throw her because she apparently gets lost in the shuffle and has been reportedly quite active doing the teenage-rebellion thing against her parents. Anyway, I asked her how many horses her immediate family owns, and it’s something like 20. But each horse is owned by an individual instead of there being “family horses.” So her mom has 3, she has 5, one brother has 2, another has 3, etc., up to about 20 total. Cousin #2’s son-in-law hand-builds awesome furniture out of rough-hewn cedar. There will be pictures, I promise.

Then it was off to visit Cousin #3, who was my favorite. He’s the one I’d like to get together with in the future, and he might be coming here in the fall, which would be great! His wife is funny and a bit sarcastic, so I could see bonding with her if I had the chance to get to know them better. He shares my love of cooking and made dinner using cast iron cookware, which is something I’ve gotten into lately. Their house was cozy (“just right”), the one son we met was independent without being annoyingly rebellious (“just right”), and we talked about our lives after dinner without it feeling like an interview with a stranger (“just right”). I wouldn’t exactly call this guy “Baby Bear,” but he matched my “Goldilocks” better than the other two.

Then it was off to Jackson, WY, and the Grand Tetons. That will be the next blog entry, some time early next week. I may even have recovered some of the pictures by then.

“Air Travel Is So Glamorous” — Vacation Prelude and Part One

Prelude

Some of you have heard my explanation about the genesis of this vacation, and you probably want to skip this paragraph because it’s the same thing I’ve always said. And that is: After my dad died last year, my mother — a burnt-out caretaker 13 years his junior — was talking to her priest, who said to ”Pat, I want you to travel.” She replied, “I’m going to.” He then asked “Where are you going?” And she said “Wyoming — Yellowstone!” This is that trip.

We could not have done this trip without Dave, and we were fortunate that he wanted to join us. After much consultation, we agreed on a 3-part trip: short visit with relatives in Utah/Idaho, 2 days in Jackson WY and Grand Teton National Park, and Yellowstone National Park.

I carefully aligned our flights so that Dave and I were scheduled to arrive in Salt Lake City about 20 minutes before Mom, allowing us to meet her there. However, the morning we were to leave, as I was taking Eddie to the vet for boarding, I got an uneasy feeling that we had not made sufficient contingency plans. So I did something I rarely do — I called Mom while I was driving.

My car is manual transmission, aka stick shift. I need two hands to drive. There is no third hand available for the cell phone. So I called while sitting at what is normally a lengthy stop light.

“If something goes wrong, we’ll use Aunt Joyce as the switchboard,” I said.

“Why can’t I call you?” Mom asked.

“Because the voice mail on my cell phone doesn’t always work,” I said.

“Why?” Mom asked.

“Just trust me and don’t leave a message,” I said as the light turned and I had to make a left turn with a cellphone wedged between my ear and shoulder.

“But that’s not right,” Mom said.

HONK!!!! went the car behind me as I failed to put on my turn signal for the next sharp left I had to make.

“FUCK YOU!!” I yelled into the phone, meaning the driver, not Mom, which I had to explain once I was parked at the vet’s.

So we’re off to a good start already. I left my dubious Mom with instructions to call Aunt Joyce if there were a problem, and I said I would do the same.

Part One

Those carefully scheduled arrival times I mentioned above? They didn’t happen.

Dave and I were flying on Frontier, which is currently at the top of my list of Airlines I Don’t Hate Right Now. The day before, I did online check-in for the two of us because that’s the kind of thing I do.

Here is why online check-in is important: Say, hypothetically, you’ve booked a flight from Washington to Salt Lake City with a transfer to a connecting flight in Denver first. And say, hypothetically, that your flight to Denver is delayed 3 1/2 hours due to a mechanical problem. Under this hypothetical scenario, if you have checked in online, the airline may automatically rebook you on another connecting flight, maybe even on another airline, so that you do not have to stand in line with the teeming masses and figure this out at the airport. Which is what happened — we didn’t have to stand in line, because Frontier rebooked our second flight before we even arrived at the airport.

So thanks, Frontier Airlines and whoever came up with online check-in! Also, thanks for the two $50 vouchers, which are around here somewhere because I haven’t thrown out a single piece of paper since we left, although I will confess that I don’t actually know where the vouchers are. But I have them. Somewhere.

This begins a round of trying to contact Mom. As it will turn out, when we are on the ground, Mom will be in the air, and vice versa. All. Day. Long. So I call Aunt Joyce and tell her what’s happening. She wants to leave messages on my cell phone, however. I tell her no. Why is it that the 70-somethings don’t accept the notion of failed voice mail? Later that day, I spend the better part of an hour talking to my unhelpful carrier, and I still don’t have voice mail on my cell phone. This will be solved, but it wasn’t going to be solved while we were traveling.

Having nothing better to do, Dave and I go to the United counter, which is the airline that now has our second flight, from Denver to Salt Lake, and which is incredibly busy. The man who stands there directing people to his colleagues asks us what we want. Seat assignments, we tell him. He says his colleagues won’t be able to help. I look at them. They are under siege. But we decide to stick around and take our chances. Sure enough, when we do get to an agent, she gives us great seats in Economy Plus, for an extra charge. What do you get in Economy Plus? Nicer seats with extra leg room. I am 5′ 10″ and expecting to put in a 20+ hour day by time we land. Of course we’re going to pay the extra charge, which is only $39 each.

I then call Aunt Joyce, who volunteers to meet Mom at the airport since we won’t be there. It’s a 90-minute drive for her, but she and her husband will do that because otherwise my 76-year-old mother will be stranded.

Hours later, Mom calls my cell phone (and I have several voice messages from her and Joyce on my phone — too bad I can’t get at them) and actually reaches me.

“I’m in baggage claim, where are you?”

“Denver.”

“What?”

“Did you call Joyce?”

“No. Oh, wait, here she is.”

So that part works reasonably well. Dave and I then make reservations for a Hampton Inn near the Salt Lake City airport. Because our flight out of Denver is weathered in for a while, we arrive there just before 2 a.m. With the time change, this comes to a 22-hour day. We are not in the best shape at that point. The Hampton Inn is not all that easy to find, although the guy at the Hertz counter got us fairly close. But it is worth it. The clerk puts us in the quietest room he has open and, mercifully, we sleep. Sort of. If you don’t count Dave’s leg cramp in the middle of the night and my general inability to sleep from having been wired all day long. But eventually, we are something approximating rested, and get up in time for the free breakfast.

Hampton Inn gave us a great room, a better-than-decent free breakfast, and a few hours of sanity when we were desperate, all at a very reasonable price. Thanks, Hampton Inn!

Next up: Aunt Joyce, Sam, and the Idaho Cousins.