New Beginnings and Old Friends

Well that was certainly a challenging winter, wasn’t it? Between the confusion of COVID, weird politics, and strange weather events it seemed longer than usual. Bob and I spent much of the winter trying to support Truman, who was struggling with remote high school, and planning the next phase of our retirement trips. And finally, we are on the way!

Our first trip is a drive in Penny to Florida, for what Bob calls the ‘old people’s theme park trip’ to Universal and Disney. My annual pass is about to expire and for the first time in many years, I am going to let that happen. After our park days, Penny will take us to Key West. It looks like a terrific drive and Bob, Penny and I are all looking forward to that. We will be meeting our friends Tim and Cindy there and taking the ferry to Dry Tortugas National Park, then meandering our way back home for a week before embarking on a 2-month trip across the USA to numerous National Parks, the Pacific Coast Highway and back on Rte 66. Hope you will join us for that one.

We began on Tuesday after buttoning up the house and taking out the garbage. The first leg was to be a 7-hour drive to Savannah, Georgia, just to spend the night and on to Universal, until I realized that we had friends who had just moved to Savannah, so we decided to see if we could connect.

When my daughter Jessica was 13 years old, we moved to West Virginia from Pittsburgh. Moves are difficult for anyone at any age, but I think they are most difficult for teenagers. A move requires finding new friends during a time when young people are just finding themselves, and to make matters worse, Jessica’s big sister Leigh was staying behind with her dad as it was her senior year in high school, and it seemed really unfair to move her at that point. Leigh has the more outgoing personality so Jessica was losing one of her friend-making resources in the deal. Even worse, Jessica had the idea from somewhere that everyone in West Virginia wore their jeans rolled and carried a pig! Anyone who knows Jessica now, at age 44, knows that she would happily wear her jeans rolled and carry a pig. She would even name the pig something creative like Pig Floyd, and introduce him to Roland and Pete, her cats. But at 13, this was the worst thing she could imagine. That move turned out to be a wonderful change for Jessica. And that was because of the friends she found, many of whom are still important to her today. Tracy was full of what my mother would have called ‘piss and vinegar’ and was a force of nature. Shelby was a southern belle, princess-pretty and sweet-natured. Kelly became the earth mother and an outstanding musician. And then there was JJ.

When I think of JJ, I think of a kid who always seemed to know her way, although I know it probably never appeared that way to her. Full of a willingness to work hard with lots of ambition, JJ was quick witted, a loyal friend, kind and hilarious. Bob’s favorite JJ story is that one winter morning he woke up and found her soaking wet and shivering at our back-deck door. She had slept in our hot tub. Apparently, she was spending the night at our house and got locked out, so ever-resourceful, she climbed in, pulled the hot-tub cover over her, and let the snow fall until she saw lights inside. Bob recalls that he simply said, “don’t tell me—I don’t want to know.” JJ was part of the family during the West Virginia years and beyond and for the past many years has lived with her equally terrific husband Alan in Portland, Oregon. She and Alan have a 2 ½ year old powerhouse of a daughter named Vivian who has the best characteristics of both of them, and they have all just moved to Savannah. When I realized we would be within range of them, I reached out to Jessica to get their information, and we set up a chance to get together.

We have been to Savannah once before and again were amazed by the Spanish Moss hanging from from all the trees. It's easy to see how this area has the reputation for having ghosts. As it turned out, JJ, Alan and Vivian had just arrived 2 days before. They are staying in an Airbnb in Savannah’s Historic District. They mentioned that their Airbnb had some odd happenings, such as doors opening and closing unexpectedly, adding to the Savannah legend. We met up at the Starland Yard Food Truck Park. This is an awesome park with rotating food trucks and entertainment, a bar and brewery, and is open and inviting to children, pets and people of all ages. It is just a block from JJ’s Airbnb and was the perfect spot to meet up. At first, we couldn’t find it but then JJ texted us to look for the storage containers, and there it was! We had a great time catching up and watching Vivian run the legs off both her parents, reminding us how exhausting a two-year-old can be. It was so much fun to watch the kid we once knew who has now become such an accomplished grown up and a terrific parent. Jessica was sad that she wasn’t able to be part of this reunion so we gave extra hugs for her, and will try to stop again on our way back from Key West.

We spent the night in an Aloft hotel just a few blocks from JJ. One thing about having Penny is that we do worry about leaving her in a parking lot all by herself. But she clearly can’t come in the hotel with us. So Bob spends a lot of time like the worried parent he is checking up on her. The Aloft hotel had only valet parking, which made him initially very nervous. But Luis and Scott took excellent care of Penny and we can highly recommend the Aloft in the Historic district in Savannah. As usual, we did manage to get lots of stuff in Penny, although it does take some muscle to get it all in!

Next day we headed out to Orlando. I must have been running some kind of bad karma because every time it was my turn to drive, it poured buckets! But we made it safe and sound, and checked into the Hard Rock Hotel for the first of our ‘old people’s theme park days.’ Looks like lots of rain, but it’s August in Florida, so what did we expect?