Saturday evening, March 5

Blog Saturday March 5, 2005

Catching up….

As I posted previously, we really had a great time with Aunt Mildred. She is a feisty 85 year old. I asked her how she and her husband, Jim, met and she proceeded to not only give information, but showed off her independence. After WWII (she was a WAVE) she did not want to go home to New Castle; no way. She ended up in Rochester, NY with a Navy friend and went to work as a secretary to a plant manager there. Jim was in Time Study (what we could call Industrial Engineering today) and the rest is history. She actually did books as a radio station there that was owned by the Townsend family that owned WKST in NC. The “T” stood for Townsend so I made a wild guess at this person’s name and was right. Not sure how I remembered that connection. But it was a small world for Mildred. She had five girls…four remain with the next to the youngest being killed in an auto accident caused by a drunk driver in the early 70s. Debbie was a favorite of Aleene’s mom and had been in NC earlier that summer when we were there. She is the only one of the girls that I had ever met. She was 14.

Mildred served us hot chicken salad, peas, lettuce salad and pecan pie and ice cream. Oh yes, we had wine before dinner…Mildred really enjoys wine. What a great time. Very opinionated, but so wholesome and genuine.

We got to her house by a personal shuttle (Jaguar) that a couple of guys own…door to door service for a fee. It worked very well.

We had a good night’s rest and then off toward Phoenix from Tucson. We came up I-10 to I-8 then west to AZ-85 to 10 again and east back toward Phoenix, which allows you to miss the traffic of the big city. As I said earlier, the Frens’ welcomed us with open arms and the dogs are doing well. The weather turned wet late afternoon with thunder, so Rose was a bit stressed. That has cleared (thunder) now but we are inside for the evening.

Tomorrow is church and then Doug is coming over from Luke AFB for lunch and to spend the afternoon. It will be his 32nd birthday, so we will help him celebrate. His wife, Jody, is in Florida with her sister. They feel lucky to have family around the country to hang out with when separated.

The weather is going to be wet tomorrow, but Monday through Thursday looks good (over 75 and sun.) Friday, March 11 we head back to I-8 and west to San Diego. We think we will spend the weekend there, rent a car and try to see Carol, Aleene’s friend (maid of honor) from Indiana U.P. (college days). I want to see the Midway Memorial and drink in the similarity to the FDR. I will probably get verklempft, as Mike Meyers would say. Monday we will head for Oregon via LA and straight north up I-5.

We have covered over 2000 miles so far with about 4000 left until we get back into Michigan.