From the Driver's Seat"....We made it! Pulled in to Bangor, Maine tonight after a very long arduous drive. Heavy rain all day, some truck traffic. I think the 'watch for moose' signs give you a good idea of how north we are!

The last few days have been nostalgia overload. After Cleveland we travelled to Dunkirk, New York, the home base of my mother's family for decades. I drove Terry around showing her where everyone lived, who built what houses (my grandfather and uncles were builders) where I played as a kid.....then headed to Van Buren Bay, my second home during the summers. We had lunch with my Aunt Ginnie and Uncle Chuck along with my cousin Larry and his wife Madelyn.

Then we went down to the beach but there's not much left....the water's rising and the sand is leaving...=-(.... A visit to Larrys beachfront house and my other cousin Allan's boat and we shuffled off to Buffalo to visit another aunt and uncle, Marilyn and Fuzzy. They treated us to dinner and put us up for the night....very generous and too many laughs! Thanks!

Monday morning Terry and I did a quick tour of Niagra Falls before heading off to Saratoga Springs to visit yet another cousin, Dennis and his wife Peggy. I haven't seen Dennis for any length of time, other than a few minutes here and there, for many years so I was looking forward to our visit. I had a great time with them, again being taken out to a very nice dinner and very nice bed for the night. Dennis is a very accomplished jeweler and Terry got the chance to sit down with him to design a new ring utilizing the diamonds from one of her mother's rings...she's very excited to have him make her the ring! We sat around their living room last night talking about everything from politics to confessionals and laughed the whole time. This morning we visited the Saratoga Auto museum with Dennis to see the Porsche display (wasn't that conveeeeeenient! He's a Porsche fan)Thanks for the great visit!!

The car? Day three of absolutely no problems. Any problems today would have been AWFUL because of the rain so the few inconveniences I had during the first few days have paled in comparison to the bulletproof dependability over the last few days. The radiator hasn't lost a drop of coolant and after repairing that fried plug the alternator was able to easily keep the needle at 14 volts, even with the headlights on, wipers going and defroster blowing....wasn't doing it before. I also want to plug the makers of the electric wipers (can't remember their name!)....they've been working for hours, never miss a stroke!

Gonna spend a couple days here......we need the rest! To prove how badly we need it, yesterday was our 29th anniversary and we both forgot!!!!!!