| Went to NY state for a wedding party for my cousin Emily. We flew into Dulles. I have to say with all the bombings I was eager to get out of there and was watching my surroundsing. On day 1 we stayed with a friend, Smiley, from Bolivar who lives in VA not far from Dulles, where we flew in. He had whitetail deer and cheese sandwiches and great company. The next day we headed to sister Julie’s in Pittsburgh. Sara stayed and I took nephew John with me to Bolivar the next day. He changed his mind several times on wanting to go or not. We drove to classmate Pat’s place. John fished in Jeff and Sue’s pond then we went to dinner at Carl and Amy’s, who sell our fish and own a beautiful little farm that looks over much of Allegany County. It’s been dry and they needed rain. The next day John shot a .22, .25-06, some pistols, and a 16 ga shotgun. Pat is a good coach, and soon John was regularly hitting the clay pigeons with the shotgun and Pat inviting him up to deer hunt. John fished again at Jeff and Sue’s ponds, then we headed to Short Tract and Geneseo. John fished the Genesee River at the turn to Angelica for about an hour while I got gas. At Paula’s, Glenn made a great meal and we got outfitted with sister Paula for our trip the next day to Lake Ontario for a fishing date with Bill, Dave and Rick. We traveled there the next day, met Dave and set up a tent, then fished for bass till after dark. John caught 1 and Dave one or 2. We had a campfire and ate some bass and perch and venison and cheese dogs from Smiley and some hot dogs Rick brought and talked to the early morning hours. Bill has worked and lived in our hometown for most of the past 35 years so caught us up on gossip and history. One kid played football at Davidson and was Steph Curry’s roommate for 4 years and SC was in his wedding. Another kid was a bodyguard for a recent US president and had dinner with the family. Bill was also floored to find out a track star – Blake Eaton – was my cousin as he’d known and watched him succeed in high school and at Penn State. We saw the only rain in a week in NY for 5 minutes on the way back to Paula’s, where we stopped for dinner with John, Maggie and Eaton. We traveled on to Olean, where we met Sara and Julie and lots of family in town for the wedding receptiion. The reception was fun, with great food. This is the first family gathering I’ve noticed that mom and all here siblings are gone and my cousins and my siblings are quickly becoming the family elders. John relentlessly asked everyone he could think of to take him fishing. The next day I went looking for fresh corn and found it outside Olean. The clerk asked if I was taking it somewhere, and of course, when she heard my name – well, she was my cousin from Portville. So we caught up on her family. I’d left the sausage at cousin George’s freezer, and he was gone when I was ready to collect it so I went out to his parents to get the spare key. On the way, I stopped at cousin Polly’s when I saw her sitting outside her house and caught up with her. I got the key, got my meat, and took off for VA and arrived at Smiley’s in the early evening in a 6.75 hr drive through 90+ degree weather. I didn’t leave till late the next day, but had to air freight the meat, corn and a rifle I’d bought for John, and I didn’t know how long it would take. It was not pretty. A contractor at Dulles for Alaska Air cargo had a crabby rep, which made me crabby. We both settled down and managed to get my goods booked and I just hope they end up in Juneau and in good condition. I had to travel down to see Dad before going back to Juneau and would have had to pay several times for the rifle to travel so found it best to send it air freight along with the meat and corn. Back in Juneau Thursday and 4 trips of whale watching today. The gun, meat and corn made it in just fine and we ate corn and sausages last night and I handed out corn to other friends. So good to be home. Don’t plan on leaving for as long as I can. 60 and rain suits me just fine. |