"Back In The Saddle Again" --- Gene Autry

6:16

6:54

7:13

Up at 6:15 to a increasingly spectacular sunrise off towards Tom's Point, on what looks like a great fall day, warm with the temperatures in the low 60's, lots of crispy leaves to mulch later in the day, then dinner out at our fav, the Seezurh House, where they have reinstituted their Wednesday night special, a 10 oz. ribeye, with salad and potatoes.  The good life...with the McClure's, of course.

We said our farewells to Jill, Hayden, and Halle yesterday morning around 10:00, as we were in no hurry to get home and wanted to spend some time with the girls in the morning.  Evie made them a breakfast of french toast,  readying them for their day off from school but both have long afternoons and evenings of either dance (four hours for Hayden), and gymnastics (two hours for Halle).  It was a fine day to drive back to the lake; we just put the car on automatic pilot and go as we know the way by heart.  The colors are no longer at peak, so most of the way, we were treated to rust brown looking trees off on either side of the road, with patches of green pines for contrast.  It felt like winter was nearby.  And on the roads we take, avoiding the PA turnpike except for a 13 mile strip, we have little traffic, going mostly on back roads.  We got home about 4:30, as expected, unpacked quickly as we really are learning how to bring less and less on our usual four night stays at our kids homes, just right for them and us.

Evie brought some of her vegetable soup back to the lake, pulled a couple of Sahlen hot dogs out of the freezer, and along with a salad and Stadium Mustard of course, we had an easy dinner.  It seemed like we had been away longer than four nights for some reason.  We settled in our TV room with our dinner and caught up on our missed TV episodes, both the Daily Show and Colbert, plus The Good Wife and Masters of Sex.  None were particularly interesting, compelling, as either we are becoming more and more curmudgeonly and critical or the shows are not as good as they have been.  I did finish my third David Downing book, Stettin Station and I really enjoyed it. Set in Berlin just as America declared war on Germany, John Russell, the protagonist, is forced to flee Germany, a suspenseful, nail biting end to the novel.  Cannot wait to start the next one Potsdam Station, and ordered the final two from the local libraries.

It looks like a yoga morning at Studio Panterra in Westfield, then an afternoon of mulching leaves, as most have fallen from both Leonard's and our trees.