Pleasant End To A Long Chapter

Georgetown MD Harbor, Sunday July 2

It's Sunday night and we just returned to Tarwathie from Vermont and Newark Airport. Thus marks the end of a very long chapter. For more than a year we have planned around a reunion with David before he left for Iraq. That was the original intent behind our aborted plan to sail to Alaska. I'll backtrack a little and tell the story.

Last Wednesday we decided to sail only a half day and then to drive to Rome, NY to my son John's house. We parked Tarwathie on the mooring and left the marina about noon. When passing through Valley Forge PA, guess what we saw from the highway -- an Ikea store! We couldn't resist that, so we took a break for an hour or so to walk through Ikea and to buy some Swedish coffee and other food treats.

The persistent rainstorms had stopped and the sky was blue. However, wherever we went the main news on the radio was about the flooding disasters everywhere caused by the rain. It was almost surreal. As we drove through Wilkes-Bare Pennsylvania, they were evacuating 200,000 people. As we drove through Binghamton, we could see helicopters picking people up from their houses. Yet here we drove through on high ground, nice weather and our progress completely unimpeded.

Thursday we did a swap. Dave's boy Bobby stayed behind with his cousin Nick while we took the little girls Katelyn (7) and Victoria (5) with us to Vermont. It was yet another nice drive through northern new york. We passed just south of Potsdam. At the end of the trip we rode the ferry across Lake Champlain to get to Vermont.

On Friday, there were lots of activities. Visiting friends, picking berries, surfing the net, a visit to the Burlington Maritime Museum plus more. In the evening, John and the rest of the family arrived.

On Saturday, we went to Essex Junction in the morning. We saw our old house, and Dave tried to get a haircut at his old barber's place, but it was closed. Saturday afternoon, until midnight that night, Jenny and Christian hosted a BBQ and a party for the family plus close friends from Vermont. We had, John, Jenny, David, Nick, Sara, Katelyn, Victoria, Bobby, Cheryl, Christian there for family and Mat, Tim and Ivy there, all close friends of David. It was a lot of fun. Good food, frisbee throwing, bubble blowing, and story swapping. Late in the evening, Bobby showed us a slide show on his laptop from his recent school field trip to Italy and Greece.

Today, Sunday, we left Jenny's house around 9 in the morning heading south. Dave's plane was to leave EWR at 1800. We drove down over the Champlain Bridge, and past Brant Lake and Horicon. It was a very pretty drive. We ate lunch at the Chinese buffet on Wolf Road in Albany, right next to my old office at NYISO.

Anyhow, it all set the stage for the meloncholy moment at the curb at the airport when we had to say so long to David and Bobby. Dave leaves July 11 for training in Mississippi and then his unit goes from there to Kuwait and then Iraq. We're very proud of David for volunteering to serve his country this way. Of course we're also very nervous about sending our son off to war. It's a very emotionally tearing event. It is entirely fitting that we preceded it with a week's worth of fun, laughter, family and friends. Much thanks goes to Dave's wife, Cathy, for letting us borrow her two men just before Dave leaves.

The next time I get a WiFi connection, I'll post pictures from the event.

Next on Tarwathie's agenda, is to head for Cape May, NJ and then Block Island, RI. I'm not sure if we'll go directly or take it slow so as to see the July 4 fireworks show in Havre de Grace.

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