Perhaps he was saying goodbye

The little green frog clung to my arm tightly for a few minutes, remaining where he had landed when he jumped  off the door. Suddenly he came back to life and dove into the shoe bucket, sending us all on a merry chase around the back hallway as we sought to shoe him out.

Task complete,  we resumed packing the car for the long drive that would begin tomorrow. I was still dazed as I moved about our luggage & packages to think that all the months of preparation were finally over. Soon we would know how well we had done......or not.

I could hardly sleep that night. I thought by turns about who I would meet,  what the roads might hold, the wonders we would see, concerns about how William would handle the fumes, dust, and heat, tumbled through my head inspiring smiles and frowns by turns.

It would be a memorable experience, no doubt. I prayed it would be a good one for us all.

Thursday, July 18th 

Thursday morning promised to be hot, humid, and hazy. Mother knew I had not rested well and volunteered to take the first turn where the roads would be quiet and familiar. Our journey would use a rural route until we were past Washington DC.

The first few hours were uneventful. The familiar waterfront mansions, forests, and farms scrolled by as we headed north. We were a bit concerned about  how well our old ac would restrain the heat but an hour or so up the road the humidity lifted, allowing us to use the free fanning of the wind :)

We stopped at Horne's, our favourite souvenir & old-fashioned malt shop, excited to know that we would be headed in a new direction from this point on. Too excited to eat, we loaded up on sodas & filled a small pouch with tiger's eye, amethyst, and cyan blue blobs before taking a couple of pictures and moving on.

There were a few treats on the way: an old fort in Baltimore, elderly brick factories, churches, & old civic buildings, but nothing as grand as the structures & buildings in Philly itself! As we drew near our turnoff we saw HUGE ship masts, a ship shaped scraper, another with a step pyramid top, and many huge edifices with worked stone.

We were stopped in traffic some miles from our turn but this proved fortuitous as we were able to plan our turns to the hotel while we waited. Even better, the ac had recovered its.uh.wind? somewhere below Baltimore so we didnt have to suffer from the heat radiating from all sides.

The road we chose took us beyond the restored/maintained areas, but a dead end a few blocks from our hotel made us find the main road in time to see glipses of museums and parks, gracious lampstands, statues and more.

Scraper, Kirsehn, and Rchan were already at the hotel when we arrived. So we all went to dinner together at the local deli. It had its own character too..........bright orange vintage 70's LOL
But the food was good and the lady who served us was very nice, if insistant that we eat our veggies before we could have dessert! We visited back  & forth at the hotel that night before collapsing back into our various rooms, happy, tired, and looking forward to tomorrow. Mysterium had begun!