On to Baltimore.
First – a very happy birthday to my dear (and dearest) sister Hilary, whose birthday is this very day.
Some thoughts. In setting out today for the Baltimore area, I’m leaving the more familiar aspects of my life. I’ll be staying a couple of nights with Brad and Gay, but visiting Ken and Estelle, and I hope tomorrow Ken and I (and maybe Brad) will be taking a “tour” of Baltimore to visit important places and release more of Bev’s ashes. It’s not so much that Baltimore is unfamiliar – it’s not; Bev and I have been going down there for 50 years, or close, and Ken is a major part of my life, having known Big Ken, it seems, since I’ve known Bev. The lack of familiarity will really begin after leaving Baltimore on Tuesday, when I head to Versailles, Kentucky, and Jerry and Melissa, by way of Sevierville, Tennessee. Once I’m out on the “open” road, after leaving Baltimore, other than visiting with Jerry and Melissa, I’ll really have no familiarity to fall back on. I do know the country well (or well enough) having travelled across it many times, but the trip itself has no real definition, other than having a sense of my stops along the way.
At the moment, for instance, I have no idea where I’ll be staying each night – I do have some camping gear with me, but I expect to more often stay in hotels, which I’ll book (I hope successfully) a day or two ahead as I figure out where I’m likely to be each night, and what I’ll be doing along the way is not clear. How often will I stop, hike, eat, draw or paint, visit towns along the way, stay awhile? Will I get fed up of all the driving or the solitude? I guess I’ll find out (and so will you, dear reader). It’s both exciting (or something like that) and uncertain (or something like that).
Of course, I’ve thought about Bev constantly, of course, and ironically wish Bev was with me on this trip even though it’s largely a pilgrimage and tribute to Bev and a commemoration of her life. No Bev is so surreal.
But soon to breakfast with Marilyn, Alan, Suzanne, and Harold, and then off to Baltimore, or, actually, to Brad and Gay’s, in Hanover, Pennsylvania.
I took a fairly leisurely drive down to Pennsylvania, coming inland and passing through Lancaster and York, and arrived at Brad and Gay’s lovely home in Hanover, Pennsylvania around 4 pm. Originally, I was going to stay with Ken and Estelle, but as Estelle is having some difficulties it was better to stay in Hanover instead, about 50 minutes away. Great to see Brad and Gay, on their own turf, and we’d never been to their home before, so I’m especially glad to be here.
If things go well tomorrow, Ken and I, and perhaps Brad and Gay as well, will take a Baltimore area tour to visit those old Bev haunts and sights and spread some ashes, bringing Bev back home. Right now, though, time to sleep. 😴
