Sep 16-18 -- on our way

Time flies. On the 16th, Sunday, it seems that the bulk of the day was taken up with packing up. That's not completely true of course, since I travel light ... but we had to fiddle around with our choice of luggage and contents due to size and weight restrictions on the flight from Leeds to Amsterdam. The carrier -- Jet2 -- imposes all sorts of restrictions. You have to pay for every checked bag and you pay, 5 British Pounds per kilo (2.2 pounds), for overweight over 39.6 pounds (18 kilos) -- and you cannot get away with moving heavy items to your carry-on either since the size limits (18x12x9 inches) and weight limits (10 kilos/22 pounds) are also restrictive. I hope that our scale is accurate ...

-- Sandy got the 4x8's finished then we moved them making way to move the trailer into the barn.
-- Jason left about 5pm.
-- For dinner we had Fillet Mignon -- I had to mention that since you don't often read about us having steak ... with mushrooms and veggies. I had bought an entire Fillet from Costco some months ago and cut it into steaks and put it in the freezer.

... and that's about it for Sunday.

Yesterday, of course, was a driving day. It was sunny all day so the trip was easy. Being Monday there was very little traffic the entire way and we left late enough that we didn't get tangled in Toronto traffic. We left about 7:15 and arrived in Philly about 6:45 -- a typical trip. We stopped 4 times -- at the service center south of Barrie for the restroom; at the border to talk to the chatty U.S. customs & immigration officer; at the 1st service center on I90 east of Buffalo for lunch (which we had packed) and restrooms again; and in Marathon New York for gas. The Nav system logged 11.5 hours total time including 45 minutes stopped. As usual, it was set-the-cruise-control at 7 mph over the speed limit (or 15 kph in Canada) and steer. Those are safe speeds -- we went by numerous police cars in Canada and the U.S. with radar pointed at us and didn't tickle any one's fancy.

The border guard really was chatty, wanting to know where New Smyrna Beach was, how long I'd been retired etc. I guess that he doesn't get paid by the number of cars that he processes.

On the way down we both caught up with Angela Goodchild by cellphone who we had not seen since last summer. I also talked to George Cederholm who is in Oregon at a rally at this point. I also talked to Angelika Scherb who is firming up her plans to visit us in a couple of weeks when we will be in Florida and Steve Pozgaj -- my long-lost buddy from university who visited us just before Labour Day (note the spelling, that's because we were in Canada).

Today ... well, Sandy is still sleeping. Kylie has already left for school -- she leaves before anyone else gets up except me). Lauren gets up next and then eventually Stef and Aaron. I don't remember ever being here on a school morning before. Usually after staying overnight we are out of here early in the a.m. off to our next destination.

I plan to go downtown Philly to get my watch band checked since it's very loose. There is a watch repair place that Sandy has been to before that changes batteries and does minor repairs on the spot. Since all of our watches are dive watches changing batteries is not something that can be done in the usual jewelery or mall island store. They have to pressure-test the seal. My band had loosened up to the point where it came apart and Sandy got a temporary fix at a Jewelery store in Sudbury where the lady said that the band really needs replacing. I don't believe that ... but we'll see.

Sandy may come with me, don't know for sure, but I'm going to have lunch with Joe McGinley, a former colleague who is still working with EDS and then it's back to Stef's, load the car and head for the airport. Our flight is at 8:30 so we will probably eat dinner at the airport (yuck) and then my next post should be from England ... assuming that I find some connection there. Our hotel in Amsterdam has wireless Internet service but we won't be there until next Monday.

Cheers ...