Well, we survived our 9 day epic journey to Anderson, SC, and Louisburg (up from Raliegh), NC. Left Saturday last week at 9 am, got as far as just North of Macon, Ga. by nightfall. Stayed at a Comfort Inn - supposedly new, but not great. Left about 8 am next day, got to brother-in-laws house, where Sue's Mom is, by mid-day. Stayed there till Wednesday, mid-day. Overnight first night at a LaQuinta, that was obviously a converted old dump. Nice conversion, but it didn't smell too good, and the wife insisted we relocate for the second two nights. Moved to the Homewood Suites we had stayed at before, which wasn't much better, but didn't smell so bad. Adele (Jim's wife) cooked for us the whole time, so that was good. Ate too much , as usual, drank a lot of coffee to stay awake. Mom did pretty well. Sue put her little Xmas tree together, did a puzzle with her, showed her the Slovak dolls, etc. and basically spent a good deal of time with her. It was nice to be with her. On Wednesday, drove up I-85, past Greenville, Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Greensboro, Durham, to daughter's house in Louisburg. Had a nice thanksgiving dinner, which we didn't have to cook. Visited with the 2 granddaughters, endured the son in law, who was not thrilled we came, as usual. Weather wasn't bad (50's for highs), but too cold for us Florida people. We were glad to start for home on Saturday morning. Drove down I-95 as far as St. Augustine that day, put in at a Fairfield Inn for the night. It was new, clean, and by far the best motel we stayed at on that trip. Marriot does a good job, generally. At at a local Italian place recommended by the staff, which was pretty good. Left at 8:30 AM Saturday, stopped at Disney Marketplace. Took a baloon ride (tethered, goes up 400 feet), which was new, and cool - you can see all of Disneyworld. Then, at at the nearby steamboat restaurant (cant remember the name), which was cool too. Decent food. We browsed through the soveineer shops, particularly the Cristmas stuff, didn't buy anything, and left about 1 Pm. Got home as expeced by 3 PM. The house was in pretty good order - usually something is broken when we come back. Sure as shootin, next day the wife says the water-on-the-door of the refrigerator wouldn't work. Monday, I called a repairman, who charged me $40 to come out and tell me the water line in the freezer door was frozen cause we had it too cold, and didn't use it for a week. Told me to turn off the freezer, leave door open for awhile, and he left. Sure enough, it thawed within less than an hour. Next time I will know what to do, so guess it was worth $40. At least not a big deal.
Glad to be back in FLA~!