Road Trip Day Two: Nashville/Vanderbilt

Road Trip Through Ohio

It's 6:45 and I think I could have slept in but we want to be off by 8:00 so when I checked my watch,  I got up. As usual, I am the only one up as I sit here, listening to the coffee perk. Joe and Lou know my routine so the coffee maker was ready, the cups were out as was the sugar. 

We left as we hoped, by 9:00 and were surprised at how cold it was, 28º. We were lucky on our drive most of the way until we hit #70 outside Columbus when we were surrounded by trucks. There's not a lot to say about driving through the flatlands of Ohio in late fall, as the cornfields were cut, the vista seemed to go on forever. Once we got outside of Columbus, we stopped for lunch at Mc Donalds, and for once, we sat down inside and enjoyed our burgers, fries, and coke and were about the only ones seated. 

We dropped off #70 in Indiana and took #503, a back road, for about 30 miles to Oxford, Ohio, home of Miami University. We were glad to be off the highway and enjoyed the drive through the soft hills and curves of the road, the stretches of cut corn and hay fields, and the well-kept homes and farms. We arrived at 3:45 and Joe was out getting the mail so it was easy to find their home, We love their house and it was warm and cozy with a fire going. To say we had lots to talk about would be no exaggeration. We haven't been together in at least five or six years. So we caught up on the doings of both of our kids and grandkids. We both have seven and like us, their grandkids don't live near, four in CT, three in NJ. While we are heading West for Thanksgiving, they will be going East to New Jersey, to their son Jay's home.

Dinners Ready

Joe had promised a special dinner, so while we were enjoying our first of a couple of glasses of wine, he was putting together clam linguini, his specialty. I helped in the linguini tasting, to see if it was done and we sat down to enjoy our dinner of clam linguini, salad, and hardy bread around 6:45. All four of us get to be members of the clean plate club because it was delicious. For dessert, we had key lime pie, just right for after a pasta dinner. 

Friends Since College

After dinner, Joe and I talked basketball, as we were teammates in college and spent much of our teaching careers coaching. Joe was an assistant at Miami for twenty to thirty years while Mary Lou taught third graders. Evie and Lou talked about grandchildren, of course,  and their lives while retired. All four of us are fortunate to enjoy our working careers as well as retirement. Oxford, Ohio has to be one of the most beautiful towns to retire in the US although I have to admit, it's not Chautauqua Lake! By 10:00, we were talked out and all four of us got ready for bed.