A Reason To Explore

Karen is here visiting for a few days. She and Carmen met at a big law firm in Orlando in 1988 and have been best friends ever since. She has visited us in two houses in St. Cloud, Florida, our house in Orlando, our apartment in Watertown, Massachusetts, twice during our Albuquerque year and now Meadville, Pennsylvania.

Karen flew into Pittsburgh and rented a car to drive the ninety miles to Meadville on Saturday morning. She's sleeping in the living room on two Aero beds stacked like a box spring and mattress. These can be turned up on their ends out of the way during the day, then laid down quickly and easily for sleeping. Easy peasy.

Although she's Southern Baptist, she nearly always comes to church with us when she visits, especially if Carmen is preaching like today. She has a fairly good grasp of the Unitarian Universalist mindset, having hung out with Carmen since we first joined the Orlando church in 1990, and stayed with her through Lesley University, Andover Newton Theological School, and ordination in Albuquerque.

So now we get to see the sights of Meadville with her. Today we ate lunch at Montana Rib And Chop House, our favorite local restaurant, then drove around the area to places I'd never seen before. Then we walked part of Woodcock Dam, and stopped at a wonderful ice cream stand on the way home. It's good to have company. And the weather! It was seventy degrees and sunny, probably the most pleasant day weather-wise we've experienced here.

Rain is forecast for tomorrow and Tuesday, but we are going to try to go to Pymatuning Spillway, where the ducks walk across the backs of the fish (look it up, I'm not kidding.) We've heard about this, evidently the premier attraction in northwestern Pennsylvania, since we first started talking to the Search Committee in January. Several locals have threatened to take us there, but we've held out so far. Looks like tomorrow might be the day we become official residents, having passed the rite of Pymatuning.

Maybe we'll hit a deer on the way back. That's the other thing we haven't done.