Trip to PA

This was my 5th trip to PA for the year and Lois's 6th. The main reason for going this time was Millie and Wes's wedding. The wedding was lovely with the weather cooperating wonderfully for the outdoor reception at the park in Millersville.

A Mariachi band performance at the reception added a special cross-cultural touch. I really enjoyed a song that I think I had copied to 8 track tape from an LP that Eldon owned with a song with the phrase "Ala capa tin tin tin esta noche vaya ver" - that's an attempt at spelling out what I hear. When Herman was about 4 years old he used to go around singing that song.

We did the all too familiar 3 day trip - drive in on Friday, spend Saturday there and drive back on Sunday. Abby went with us helping to curb the tedium of the long drive. We also covered many miles listening to a 19 CD novel "Cutting for Stone".


On the way there we stopped to see David and Martha Clymer. David is fighting a recurrence of his stomach cancer. He seemed pretty good but is undergoing chemo which on some days leaves him with no energy at all. Unfortunately, the long term prognosis is not good but then when he had the original surgery 8 years ago they didn't expect him to last this long either.

We took Grammy back to Landis Homes after the reception and while heading back to Dave and Jane's through Lancaster on South Prince Street we were waiting at the light at Vine street when a pickup truck coming from our left made the turn on to Prince and hit two young pedestrians crossing Prince. We saw it all happening and couldn't quite believe it. The driver of the truck was clearly in the wrong so we stopped, called 911 as the one girl was not getting up. We gave our names to the police as witnesses. Fortunately, it was a fairly low speed accident and the pickup stopped before running over anyone. Neither girl appeared to be seriously injured although they were preparing to take the one on the ambulance as we left. I thought it would only make the police log but Jane let us know that it was in the Sunday paper so we found this picture and short description on line. You can see Lois and Abby clearly in the picture. I'm partially hidden by Lois.

Trip to Purdue

We visited Jonathan at Purdue yesterday. Although we had planned the trip before he got the news, it was nice to celebrate with him his passing the doctoral program qualifier exam. This was his third and last chance but he passed with a comfortable margin. His hard work the last year has paid off. So now the road ahead for the next 5 to 6 years is a little clearer for him. He's also working with a professor doing research in Density Functional Theory that will likely lead to the crucial funding needed once he finishes his formal masters courses.

This semester Jonathan and a friend are renting an unfinished apartment off campus so we took down his homemade bed frame and a few other essentials like large speakers and a worn deck of Tichu cards.

This is my first blog not related to my bike trip. If any of you want out of the automatic emails generated by this blog posting, please let me know.