The End of Our Vacation

This weekend was the end of our vacation in Indiana. We had to cut it a day short in order to get our home ready for Hurricane Irene and to avoid driving through the storm. As it was we drove through some of the outermost rain bands on Saturday afternoon and ran into a traffic jam on Interstate 95 around Boston because all but one lane of the highway had been closed by flooding. That was the worst of the storm for us. We got home before the wind arrived and I was able to bring in the trash cans and lawn furniture before they blew away. Most of our town lost power during the storm but not us. I’m glad we left Indiana early. Crossing Upstate New York on Sunday would have been a dangerous nightmare and we probably would have stayed away until the roads were safe.

Our final days in Indiana were some of the best but they were not busy days. We spent them at my parents’ weekend home on Lake Monroe, near Bloomington, Indiana. We had time to relax, read, nap in the hammock and talk. Maura’s grandfather took her fishing and she caught a catfish. We saw a deer cross the back yard and watched hummingbirds buzz around the hummingbird feeders like a swarm of feathered bees.

Maura’s grandparents took her back to Zionsville on Thursday and let Jennifer and I have the lake house to ourselves for another day to celebrate our wedding anniversary (it was actually on Sunday). While Maura spent one last day with her grandparents we spent a wonderful day without her. We spent the morning exploring the shops and galleries of Nashville, Indiana, and had lunch at the Big Woods Brewery (the Pale Ale was wonderful and the food wasn’t bad either). Afterwards we hiked in nearby Brown County State Park. The terrain was rugged, green and beautiful and the hike felt great after a week with not enough exercise. We saw toads and a snake sunning itself on the trail but very few people, though the park is popular and much busier on weekends.

On Friday morning we drove back to Zionsville, picked up Maura and hit the highway. It was a long trip and we took two days. Maura was good in the car. She had plenty to read and is happy with her nose in a book. We aren’t fans of the New York State Thruway so we took the southern route across New York--Interstate 86 to Binghamton and 88 to Albany before picking up 90 to Boston and home. We had one disappointment on the way. On Sunday morning we’d planned to have our breakfast at the Unadilla Diner.  Jennifer and I had often stopped when we were on the road during our college days. We wanted to take Maura there because the last time we’d passed that way she was too young to remember it. We found that it had closed and it was for sale. It was a small note of sadness in what was a very happy trip.