Home from snowy Baltimore where we visited my son, Thomas, his new wife and her family. Last Sunday we took a car trip in the snow, north of Baltimore to visit Joan and LeRoy Verdier who live in a little town called Havre de Grace. It was snowing when we got up and quite cold, so I opted for my Russian buffalo cap:
Took off in the snow storm and motored up the freeway, before getting off at the Loch Raven Reservoir. Lots of amazing farms along the roadway north of there. In fact I saw some of the most spectacular Norman Rockwell Christmas type scenes I've ever witnessed:
I've always had the prejudice that Iowa had the most classic farmsteads in the land, but I have to admit this area north of Loch Raven Reservoir is just amazing. Here's another scene along the roadway:
Unfortunately, when we got about a mile beyond this scene, my son, who was driving, noticed a funny feeling in the steering. Turns out we had a flat on the Lincoln, right front passenger side. Fortunately, we have AAA so while we ate Chinese soup at a little hole-in-the-wall cafe in Jarretsville, Jeff from Triple A showed up to put on the doughnut.
Great guy. Saved us a miserable slosh-fest in the snow. Of course the doughnut was low so he followed us to a gas station so we could air up the spare:
We ended up driving on the doughnut to the nearest tire shop open on a Sunday and that was a Mr. Tire in Belair:
They, of course were backed up and the manager said cryptically, "I hope you have a bunch of time to spend with us" We didn't have a choice, really. So, we all went next door to a Greek restaurant and had a long lunch:
We spent $202 on lunch (six Irish coffees), then went back and waited for another three hours. Spent a total of five hours at Mr. Tire in Belair, so I stole one of their magazines (Fast Company which had a feature on Pinterest I wanted to bring back to the office and talk about) and we missed our train connection (we were on our way to see a Lionel Train setup in a firehouse in Havre de Grace).
Got back to Baltimore at about eight in the evening and landed at a Thai Wives Club party. That was fun.
"Every war is ironic because every war is worse than expected."
—Paul Fussell
