Day One - Western Pennsylvania

My mother always used to say, "Off we go like a herd of turtles" and that's what I did this morning. Left NYC at 10:18 am which was pretty good, but had horrible traffic... took me almost an hour to get out of NYC and across the George Washington Bridge.

I have to say that I never cross the George Washington Bridge without thinking how beautiful the view to the right is -- the braod Hudson River and the Palisades. I also think of Henry Hudson sailing up the Hudson, although I don't think it was called that back then!

 I also mean to look up Palisades -- don't think I've ever heard the word used elsewhere... does it simply mean cliffs?

Then it was on through New Jersey, on to Pennsylvania where I saw a revolting sight... this jerkoff with Confederate flags all over his car. I wanted to take his photo, and then thought that he could shoot me, so this is the best I could do... and you can see one of the flags in the rear passenger window..

I have to stop as the internet connection is so weak, I keep getting kicked off and can't get back on. So I hope tomorrow night the connection will be better and I'll post all the photos. But as of right now, all is well.

Ready to Go

Coming soon: On the Road Again.

I leave tomorrow morning around 10 for a leisurely drive to Western Pennsylvania. Picked up the rental car today which came with 10 minutes of instructions from the rental car place manager ... a six foot five 27-year old named Thomas. Nice guy.

This car is so new... not only does it have the key fob thing which I don't like, but it has all these security features (like the emergency brake goes on automatically under certain circumstances like if the car is in drive and the door is open). I asked lots of questions, based on having sat once in a rental car garage not being able to turn the car on, and being embarrassed to ask, because it was my first time with the key fob thing and I didn't know you had to have your foot on the brake. Finally looked at the owner's manual in the glove compartment and figured it out.

Another feature of this car is there is no gear shift handle... it's a circular knob that you turn. The bad news is that it has no CD player so no audio books for me... I remember reading how CD players were being phased out and how happy car manufacturers were because they took up a lot of space... so I'll have time to play with the buttons... outside air temp, that sort of thing.

Off we go.

Yum Yum

from Twitter:

Old Pics Archive ‏@oldpicsarchive  37m37 minutes ago

The definition of old school cool. Cary Grant in the 1950s

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My Stupid Paranoia

I get an email from Citibank when a check I've written clears. Today I got an email saying Check # so and so for $10 has cleared and it gave me anxiety as I had no memory of writing a check for ten dollars. I don't write checks for ten dollars! What do I write a check for that's ten dollars? Nothing! Someone has broken into my account. It's somebody else's check blah blah blah.

So I go to Citibank on line and look (you can see a photo of the check) and, of course, it's mine. It's the check I wrote for the classmate's funeral flowers.

It's all coming back to me now.

Never mind.

Amy's Whereabouts

I think Amy is still in Florida. All I know is this email was called "where I am now" and then the photo labeled, "Sunset at the glider port " so here it is:

Isn't it a beautiful world?? Most of the time anyway....

Barbara's Astilbes are in BLOOM

and here they are:

Amazing Facts

Have some history channel show on with "50 Amazing Facts about the US" on... and two which AMAZED me (so far, and we're up --- or rather down --- to #33) is

What is the US State closest to Africa?

Huh?

Guess....

I was wrong....

what do you think?

I guessed SC, but the answer is...

wait for it

wait for it

MAINE

The second amazing fact is that 90% of US paper currency has residue of cocaine on it. That seems a little too amazing, but that's what the show says....