Nothing Like A Chautauqua Lake Sunrise

6:51

7:15

I woke up around 6:30, in my own bed after two weeks of travel and it feels like such a luxury.  I came downstairs, quickly back in to my routine, turn on NPR, make coffee, surf the Net, take various photographs of dawn, wait for Evie to come down.  And she's here, now, it's 7:31, and we are ready to start our first day back at the lake.  It's going to be a warm day, high in the 60's and should stay in the 50's through the week, with no snow forecast.  The lake is still frozen and we heard snow mobiles on it last night, late, headlights moving slowly in the middle of the lake.  Brave or crazy?

We left Bristow around 7:30, saying good by to Jill and Halle, though Hayden was sleeping in because of her long Sunday.  We had a fun three days but we are always anxious to get home because it's home. We were fortunate to have a sunny day for most of our drive.  It's amazing how sun makes even a early spring drive look attractive.  None of the trees along the road were in bloom yet, just empty boughs, with fat buds, ready to burst when it gets warm.  Yet there was a beauty to them, the shades of brown, lavender and black, making me want to get out my hiking boots and go for a walk in the leafless woods.  In fact, I am going to do that today.  We walked the beaches of Sanibel for a week, loved it, but I think I would take a walk in the woods over the beach...maybe.  Our only major stop was at Gio's, the barbecue restaurant and gas station, about three miles from the access to Interstate #80.  I usually get a sandwich but this time we bought a quart of barbecue and cole slaw, some buns, and that was going to be our dinner last night.  Our final stop was in Sugar Grove, to fill up on the cheaper Pennsylvania gas and pick up a gallon of Pot of Gold milk for cooking and my morning coffee, just as good as cream.

Home Again, Home Again

We got home at 3:00 and to our relief, our house was fine.  We are always anxious when we arrive, perhaps because of the tragedy of our house fire in 1995.  Anyways, all is well and though our parking space was snow covered, we easily shoveled  our walk and were in the house, unpacked and on the couch reading within an hour.  Once we are unpacked, there's always an emptiness, like now what, but we soon settle into home.  Dinner was easy, barbecued pork sandwiches with cole slaw, and we started to catch up on our saved TV shows from the past two weeks.  We watched The Good Wife, were shocked to find that Will was murdered.   I wondered if he wanted to leave the series, so this was an easy way out for the writers.

It's now almost 8:00, the sun's out, we are relaxing in our living room, with our coffee, sort of listening to NPR, when we are not reading, writing, or thinking about what we will do today.  All is right in the world, at least our world, today.