Two Days in Gettysburg

The hotel Cody and I stayed in, in Gettysburg the last couple of days had lousy internet. I would have been dead and buried by the time I had gotten anything loaded on there. So now that we are in a different hotel and about halfway home I’ll make a post and catch you all up.

Our first full day in Gettysburg, Cody and I head for my present favorite place on the battle field; Culp’s Hill. It was nice when we started out walking, cutting up through the cemetery. There are cows pastured in the field at the base of the hill. We leaned on the wooden fence and watched them move around for a while when we noticed one who had taken an interest in us. The little white calf had an ear tag that read 802, like our area code at home. As the calf seemed to follow us around we named him Little 802. He became my companion when ever I started for the hill.

That first morning we got rained on, but since we were already out there on the field, what’s a little rain. After climbing the tower and showing Cody the monument for the Washington County boys , we headed for the new Visitor’s Center. It was nice to get in out of the rain, and dry out. It’s a nice up grade and proof that our Government will spend way more money than needed on showy things that really don’t need replacing, while letting our roads go to hell. Anyhow the new place is very showy, and will stand up well, it has a much bigger gift shop, and a restaurant that isn’t worth the time or space it takes up. The very best thing about the whole new place is the new walking path that comes out right across the road from Mead’s head quarters.

With the sun back that afternoon we walked around town, and had dinner at the Farnsworth House. There is a really cool brass frog in the river that runs under the buildings there.
The second evening Cody and I drove out just before sunset to Little Round top so that I could get some shots of the sun going down. We talked for a while to a man from Albany,NY who was down there to look for ghosts. He was waiting for dark to go down by Devil’s Den. I don’t get this part of being on the field, but what ever makes you happy.

Today we headed north in a driving rain. There was a short stop at Cabala’s, and than onto the last exit in PA to buy fireworks for the 4th at camp. Tomorrow we will be home, it will be good to sleep in my bed once again, and to get my kisses from Granger. I’ve enjoyed this time with Cody, every parent should do a road trip with their child now and than.

Trip To Bring Cody Home / Day One

I got an early start on the trip to Cody . I can’t stand being at home with nothing to do but waiting to leave. So I left two hours earlier than I needed to, using the excuse that I need to stop at the bank and Post Office on my way out of town. It worked out well that I did leave early as, I encountered quite a bit of road construction, and arrived at the airport only half an hour earlier that I should have.

Albany Airport is a very easy place to get into and out of. I like to fly into and out of small airports. People are friendlier, and a smile and nice word get you farther. Having made this flight to Duluth more times than I care to count over the last year, being at Gate 4A is a lot like coming home. I already know where to sit so that I can plug in my computer, I know what I’ll find here to eat, and that if I want my favorite kind of Ice Tea I’ll have to walk down to Gate B. This is comfortable, low stress travel.

In about an hour I’ll be on a plane heading west to Detroit. It’ll be at least a two hour flight, and for what ever reason it will take about 20 minutes from the time we touch down until they let us off the plane. I fly NorthWest, because I like the airline, because I belong to their awards program, but mostly I fly them, because they are the only airline that goes into Duluth,MN. I have nothing but good to say about NorthWest, and have always felt that I was somehow important to them. Any problems that have come up in the past while I was flying with NorthWest were handled quickly and to my satisfaction, which I can’t say about other airlines.

My arrival in Detroit was a little early which left me with just over two hours to kill, before the flight to Duluth. If any of you have been in the Detroit Airport you know about the tunnel that takes you from the A gates to the B and C gates. I am always left with the feeling when walking through it that this must be what it is like to live under the ice of a frozen lake. I know that it designed to make you think of fish and water, but my thought as the music plays and lights glow in ever changing colors, is of being locked inside a large block of ice. It really is quite lovely.
When in the airport if you have the time between flights and find yourself in Gates B or C you can’t go wrong eating at the Guinness Irish Pub. This is the second time I’ve ate there and I love it. Now I’m not a drinker so I can’t recommend the beer, but I sure can recommend the Fish and Chips dinner. The fish is light, and how can you ever go wrong with home made potato chips served with coleslaw and a bottle of vinegar.

So a two hour flight latter, on a small plane, where my feet froze, and my butt went to sleep [I don’t know why they don’t pad those seats a little more] and I’m in Duluth,MN. It is still winter here. There aren’t any leaves on the tree yet, and it snowed just yesterday. I am staying the night in the Country Inn and Suites, which for my money is the only place to spend the night when you fly in late. The hotel is close to the airport, and it has big comfortable room at good price. There is one draw back to the big booming town of Duluth, it’s not a late night city. The Outback Steakhouse closes at 9pm, the nearest gas station closes at 10, but hey they have a 24 hour Wal-mart.

And so I am off on what will be at least a week long trip. A chance for Cody and I to get to know each other again, after a long winter. My only regret is that Eddie didn’t choose to come along. But for now I say good night all.

Memories

Time marches past us, it is said faster as we grow older. I believe that for parents there is an amazing time warp. For us time layers itself with truly unpredictable memories. Beginnings and endings twine together, and as if on some kind of hyper active fast forward your child is an adult. Yet you, the parent have barely breathed.

I started my time trip this morning as I drove by the Marriott in Middlebury, and the memory of walking into the place with my oldest son, just two years ago, on the night before his last high school football game. We didn’t know than that it would be a long time before he would play again. I was headed today for the Vermont’s NorthSouth Senior Football game, to watch for the first time in two years the game without one of my son’s in the field. I don’t mind saying that was sad for me.

I was sitting on cement bleachers watching high school seniors, dressed in white jerseys for the North, and green jerseys for the South. But to tell the truth, for me that field was populated by eight year olds in red jerseys, playing for the Moose. I saw little boys playing a game that would define our family life every autumn, for the last 12 years. It’s funny to realize that I don’t really remember a single touch down, but I remember the pride I felt as I stood on a side line and watched one or both of my boys take the field, and than walk off at the end of the game, somehow one step closer to being already grown.

As if this little memory trip was on roll, it drifted off onto the road home with me. I found myself traveling down Route 30 from Middlebury to Manchester in reverse of a trip I took years ago with my oldest. It has to have been seventeen or eighteen years since my son; who would have been about three, was strapped into his car seat for a trip; that in one form or another he and I would take many times over the years. My sons and I have picked many roads to travel for a road trip. It always begins with “let’s do route” fill in the number and hop in the car. My boys and I have done many drives; like Route 302 through NH and Route 2; both of them, the Mohawk Trail in MA and the great northern route in parts through New England and this summer across WI and MI.

The first road trip, the one that came flooding back to me, was to do Route 30. I have no idea why I choose the route, and realize that it couldn’t have been overly exciting for a three year old. I remember very clearly that this was where my son learned to locate up coming VT villages by spotting a church steeple. It was the game for that road trip, and his first foray into what appears to be a life time of road trips for him.

As I back tracked that route, I could swear that, that car seat was beside me in the truck. I could picture that little boy sitting there, kicking his feet and looking for the next church.

It seemed to me from my memory that it was a long trip, but in truth it’s a short ride. I found it odd that I didn’t remember driving past all the little lakes that lie along the road. Those bodies of water must have been a high point in our trip, but I don’t remember them at all. Instead my memory was happy to see the big run down white mansion of a house was still rather un-changed. A land mark, a memory mark, proof that I really took a drive on that road some eighteen years ago, with a sweet little boy.

I am no longer a young twenty something Mom. My son is no longer a tiny little boy with a bowl cut, peaking out of windows from a car seat. My son is now grown, away in college working on his second year toward some kind of a degree in wild life. He is now just short of six feet and a truly tuff half back on his school’s club team, after not playing football for a year. I’m an older Mom with a few gray hairs showing, and at loose ends as to what to do with what’s left of my life, now that I’ve been retired from being a full time Mom. But, I have my memories.