What we did last summer - 2010

What we did last summer - 2010

 

Summer 2010 involved four cross-country treks, beginning 6/28 on US Airways with granddaughter Emma, age 8, at my side. We were headed for Los Angeles to visit daughter Brett, husband Kevin and California cousins, my grandchildren, Mike (9) and Anna (7).

               Hermosa Beach, CA July 2010

We were in the LA suburb, Hermosa Beach, for seven days. Weather was chilly, 60 degrees (NJ was reportedly boiling). Daily CA activities included numerous visits to Target and the grocery store, kids’ ice hockey practice (yes, in July), strolls downtown, gazing at the ocean, drinking coffee and talking, reading newspapers and watching kids eat doughnuts. At home, children played a video game, something called guitar hero, which, from my perception,  involved singing along - incessantly, the same song, named Mercy. Never heard of it, the song or the game. 

 

Other highlights - kickball games, hide the flag (also new to me), bike riding, plus board games which youngsters loved – adults not that much. 

Postcard home said, “Having great fun.”    

       Amtrak Southwest Chief - LA to Chicago to NY

On 7/5 we boarded the Amtrak Southwest Chief train, LA to Chicago. We had two rooms, one small, called a roomette, grandpa's sleeping quarters and a larger room for everyone else - daughter Brett and three children. The kids seemed delighted with their room, especially with the challenge of inventing different methods to hoist themselves onto the top bunk, around which they draped blankets, thus constructing their own private “forts.” 

Outside of our room, the highlight was mealtime in the dining car, good food plus a great view of the countryside sliding by (AZ, NM, CO, KA, and IL). Another plus was the dark starlit quiet late-nights in my roomette.  

We changed trains in Chicago - a pleasant four hour overlay, that always involved lunch at Berghoff's a Chicago landmark that was just a short walk from Union Station. Berghoff's was suggested to us on a previous trip by a fellow traveler, named Ed Ryan, a sprightly lad, age 95, who, at the time, said he was en-route to Mexico to buy vanilla for a "lady friend. 

Ed was from Pennsylvania, where, he explained, vanilla didn't grow on trees.

Seeing my puzzled look, Ed explained that the best vanilla in the world came from Mexico. 

OK, that was something I had not known.

The Lake Shore Limited left Chicago on schedule. The overnight took us through Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania, The next day, after Buffalo, we crawled behind a freight train (an Amtrak specialty) across NY state which made us two hours late into Albany and then to Croton, NY where we met son-in-law Tom and Emma’s brothers, Ed (age 6) and John (4). Watching the cousins race to hug each other was the highlight of the trip.

                             Jersey Kids

We had three weeks in NJ, many days at the local pool, also there was a hockey camp (4 days, for Mike, Ann, and Ed, all future NHLers), two day-trips to NJ shore, two to NYC, and one memorable night when the girls modeled vintage prom dresses once worn by their now fortyish mothers - back in the 1980s, and saved by Grandma for just such a day. 

1980s? Wasn’t that just yesterday? 

                    Heading West Again

Time went fast. Before we knew it Brett and I (plus her two) were rolling west on Interstate 80 in a Hertz Camry pointing for overnight in Bowling Green, Ohio. Next day was a quick visit to the BGSU campus for hockey tee-shirts, then it was off to Madison, WI via Notre Dame University campus (more tee-shirts), and finally heading north veering by Chicago, we stalled in rush hour traffic. Bad route choice here. My thinking was a change of scenery, “anything but more cornfields,” and besides, “how bad can it be?”  Result was a three hour view of Chicago’s skyline.  See the 2011 version - Day 2 – Ann Arbor to Chicago Yacht Club posted 8/9/2011.

                       Madison, WI

We reached friends Mel and Sally Rosen’s Wisconsin home at 10 PM. We stayed two nights in Madison, a delightful college-town city, dominated by U of WI and surrounded by lakes and farm country. Mel gave us a tour of the city and surrounding countryside that rivaled a National Geographic Special. 

After Madison, it was off to the Minneapolis-St Paul to meet son-in-law Kevin at Twin-Cities airport.

Next morning was a 2 hour drive to northern MN, Deerwood, the idyllic home of Heartland Hockey Camp for NHLers, Mike and Annie. We dropped off Kevin and kids at the camp, then Brett and I backtracked to St. Paul to meet Amtrak. We had a pleasant dinner and short tour of the U of M campus, just before dark.

                            Amtrak again

Pulling into the Amtrak station around 9:30, we dropped off the Hertz car, and the two of us sat on a bench on the platform watching freight trains pass - my cup of tea. Our train was on time from Chicago and at daybreak we were well into ND, and later MT. Surprisingly boring here (endless wheat fields, flat as rugs, albeit beautiful - at first). The topography changed at the very western part of Montana and Glacier Park, which we reached, unfortunately, after dark. Thus we missed what Amtrak says are Glacier Park’s 50 “living” glaciers and 9,000-10,466 ft. mountains, trestles, impressive timbered lodges etc. - which sounded more like the Montana I expected.

We rolled into Spokane at daybreak and the subsequent ride to Portland, along the picturesque Columbia River, was beautiful scenery throughout. 

We stayed one overnight in Portland, a nice city - clean and scenic, plus very pedestrian friendly. Great dinner at an outside table on the river promenade.     

                      Amtrak’s Coast Starlight

The next day’s departure was on Amtrak’s Coast Starlight train through Oregon and down the CA coast, all very scenic, especially the mountain passes, but by the time we reached the ocean views we’d had enough of roomette living and were anxious for home. At the LA station at 9 PM we fetched our checked bags (a miracle because we had shipped them on a prior day’s train from Portland) and trekked - lugging all - across three dark LA blocks to LAPD heliport parking lot, where we met up with son-in-law’s Ford pick-up. We heaved our bags onto the truck-bed and barreled our way home on freeway roads referred to by Brett as “the 110” and “the 5,” my hands shaking on the wheel. We pulled into the home driveway at 10 PM, unscathed - another miracle.

The kids, and dad. returned from MN hockey camp, at 8 PM Saturday, into LAX, safe and sound. I gave a sigh of relief. 

                                Flight to Philly

I still had a flight to Philadelphia, four days hence. I opted out of the connecting flight to Newark (fear of flying) and caught a SEPTA train (very easy) from Philly airport to 30th Street Station and then climbed aboard  Amtrak’s Pennsylvanian (2 stops, 50 minutes, $44) to Newark, and eventually home on NJ Transit to Madison.

I waited fourteen days for Amtrak to mail me my driver’s license, which, apparently, I had decided to leave on the counter in Philadelphia when I bought my last train ticket. Why not? 

Finally I gave up waiting, and drove  west on NJ Rout 10 to the Randolph, NJ DMV for a duplicate license. I saluted my former employer, CCM (County College of Morris), as I passed. I was happy that I brought my laptop to the DMV because it gave me something to do as I waited for the "new license" line to wind down. 

When I returned home there was a phone message from the DMV. Hmmm, what could that be?

The message was, “I believe that you left your computer here; you may pick it up at window #9.” 

I drove back to Randolph, gave CCM a second salute.

In a couple of days school would start, both for the kids and daughter Ashley, who teaches Special Ed. in Summit, NJ. When she starts, my "retirement" job, pick-up/delivery/babysitting etc., begins as well. That "family" job has hours that are equivalent to my former college teaching work at CCM, just that there is no overload pay ... or any pay for that matter. But there is a monetary reward (significant money saved, not paid out to babysitters). It is truly "extra money", just not something that is reflected in the GDP. 

Regardless, it's a labor of love.