Our Recent Trip in Day by Day

I tried to insert pictures using my paid photobucket account but I don’t think the links are working. Picture #1 was of a handwritten sign pointing to horse & buggy parking, and Picture #2 was a cool sign of Owl Cigars for 5 cents, taken in Columbia City. Here’s the post, no guarantee on pictures posting…

Our non-stop flight to Indiana was the result of a cheap airfare offer: $69 each way. How could I turn it down? We’re able to be flexible in the days we fly, and we had a little time between projects, so when I saw the flash sale, I jumped on it. When my husband came home that night, I told him we were going on a 5 day jaunt to visit his sister and do absolutely nothing. His eyes lit up. He’s tired, so a rest from the rat race was a welcome idea and we love his sister and her family.

They are the ones who were with Nick when he died, so there is a deep connection. The only agenda we had was to see family and that we did, only they came to us rather than us driving all over the state to see them.

Other than a switcheroo with seats (without informing us until someone accused us of taking their seats), the flight was uneventful. The weather was glorious: 70s during the day, 50s at night, a huge difference between our muggy tropical daytime temperatures in the 90s and humid 80s at night! We slept with the windows open, snuggled under quilts made by my beloved mother in law when she was still alive. We watched hummingbirds at the feeder and listened to the coyotes howl at night. One day, we went to the grocery store. When we came out, my husband sniffed and said, “Yep. We’re in Indiana.” The smell of horse manure was heavy! You know you’re not in Florida when you see .

We parked in the front, having forgotten our horse and buggy. 😊

We enjoyed a family supper with most of our nieces and nephews on the second night and had lunch in the next day with a niece who was unable to attend, her daughter, and her grandson.

We had a picnic in the park the next night. I think it’s in Cedarville. The park had a really neat children’s water fountain that spilled into a man-made “river” with flat rocks that the children could play on. It was cleverly designed. Later we strolled over to the St. Joe river and took a shortcut through a bit of woods.

The next night was spaghetti and meatballs with my in-laws. Nephew made the sauce from his homegrown tomatoes and I showed him how I make my meatballs. Later, he took me to the place where Nick died. He told me each step as it happened. I had some details wrong, so I’m glad he did, even though it was emotionally wrenching. I touched the ground where he took his last breath and I felt his spirit was very close to me for the rest of the evening. It was very, very hard, but each time the scab is ripped off, the wound closes a little more. My nephew and I share a tight bond now. He surprised me by telling me how much he admired me. I assured him I was far from perfect.

Later, we went into the woods behind his house and sat around the fire pit he built in a clearing. He made us pudgie pies, which are made on the campfire in one of those griddles that close up and sit on the coals. I used them as a child to make grilled cheese sandwiches. He sprayed one side with cooking spray, put a slice of bread on one side, topped the bread with cherry pie filling, then topped with another slice of bread and sprayed cooking spray ON the bread, then closed up the griddle and put it in the fire. They come out toasted and hot and pretty good for a simple dessert. I would have added a bit of sweetened cream cheese to the filling, just to add a bit of interest, but it was tasty.

The guys enjoyed the final full day by attending an auto show in Auburn. I was thrilled to stay home and pack! Our last day was spent rearranging furniture (me & my sis-in-law, who loved my ideas) and fixing their tractor (years ago, my husband worked with heavy equipment), so we felt we were of some use.

Our flight home started out better than our trip up in that our seats were together, but that’s because I knew to watch for the switcheroo and sure enough, we were split up again. I upgraded to row four (and wrote to the airline about the bait & switch, so we’ll see if anything comes of it) and all seemed non-eventful until we landed. Lightning had moved in and federal regulations would not allow us to disembark. We were stuck on tarmac for two hours, listening to a drunk guy yelling for the door to be opened and it was probably just a union trick, blah, blah, blah. A woman, who laughed like a non-stop cackling hen the entire flight, kept egging him on and we were all quite relieved when they finally let us out.
The return home was a whirlwind of reuniting with KittyCat (who seemed nonchalant that we were home), laundry, bills, estimates, basically same old rat race until our trip to Boston in October.