Greetings…
Thanks for stopping by. I hope your Christmas (and New Year’s Day – if you are reading this after the 1st) was great. This year was the first time I’ve spent Christmas day in neither of the usual places for the last 20 years…and this was in Swanton, MD, not too far from the West Virginia line.
This was a trip set up by my sister-in-law, Julie The Cruise Director (just kidding – she’s just been the one to plan a lot of family trips over the years), primarily for my mother-in-law to relax, as it’s been somewhat of a challenging year, health wise.
The name of the “resort” escapes me but the amenities are basically high multi-bedroom, finished basement units all overlooking the lake. So nice, that I’d recommend it to others.
So, the squad numbered a whopping 19 people….good thing the house was big enough to accommodate everyone, it didn’t feel claustrophobic at all for the three days there, as there were plenty of bedrooms on all three levels.
The afternoon of Christmas Eve, I finally got on the road to pick up my wife’s nephew, his two kids and his aunt’s step son. We left the DC metro area at 4:45 pm and arrived three hours later, shaving a slim three minutes off the Google Maps prediction. The ride was smooth and we encountered no traffic at all, though we were the last one to arrive (most of the family arrived the day before).
Since we pulled up the rear, hunger was at an all time high. After greeting everyone (and finding our we got there a half hour after my other sis-in-law (who left 90 minutes before us) I ate, and chilled out.
The remainder of the trip was really cool, hanging out, watching TV, shooting pool and eating, and eating, and eating :-). Three little ones and an infant made the trip enjoyable too.
One thing I found I need the most was…..sleep. I slept…A LOT…which I had no bones about doing. None, because I know that opportunity probably won’t happen for some time to come. Yeah, I brought my laptop, which never got booted up…but then again, I had three novels with me whose pages didnt see the light of day either. I was just super lazy.
Though I didn’t get to take as many pictures as I expected, the landscape was super scenic. The weather was quite agreeable as well, so all in all, it was a good trip.
Driving back in the day time this morning, I believe, afforded me even a quicker trip back. It was a total of four major arteries and there was no traffic at all. One of the most pleasant parts of the trip back was educational, in a way. I got schooled on the residential solar panel industry that my wife’s young nephew works in. Seeing that this is his first real careeer, it was great to hear how happy and enthusiastic he is about the field. It seems he is well on his way to become a team supervisor after a year in the job. For a three hour drive, even in the short amount of time we talked (close to an hour), I got to learn things about him I never knew….all good at that.
Got home in enough time to catch the 1pm NFL games but peeked at a few…all the teams I’d hope would win (except for the Jets) lost. Oh well…today was definitely relaxing. Back to the grind tomorrow.
Peace…have a great week.
Fresh!
