Someone named Will Kommen said “If you look like your passport photo, you’re too ill to travel.” . . . Diane asked about the several different marks of punctuation, and one answer was ellipsis. If you don’t know what that is look at these three dots . . . We learned several people checked for bedbugs in our motels and found none
. . . I ate ice cream made from Jersey cows, delicious . . . Our suitcases got heavier, but then rocks from the seashore weigh a lot . . . Plymouth Rock is disappointingly small . . . The volume of water flowing over Niagara Falls boggles the mind . . . You gotta admire the bravery of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence . . . Our guide in Vermont lamented how he missed the last public appearance of Robert Frost . . . The naked lady cowboy in Times Square wore a couple skimpy items behind that guitar . . . Thomas Jefferson possessed a fertile mind
. . . NYC 30,000 Yellow cab drivers drove a lot of Ford Escape Hybrids . . . A pit bull near Grant’s Tomb acted like he would have attacked me, but luckily his handler held him with what looked like a log chain . . . The foliage on Gettysburg has surely been nourished by the thousands of men slain there . . . The solemnity of the ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier takes your breath away . . . Robert E. Lee’s house near Arlington Cemetery isn’t worth the effort of stepping inside . . . 15,000 people work in the Empire State Building . . . Registered thoroughbred horses wear a tattoo on the inside of the upper lip . . . The runoff from heavy rain caused someone to lose his pumpkin crop; we saw them floating against a dam . . . The worst joke told: what do you get crossing a menopausal woman with a GPS, a bitch who will find you . . . We bought “Blue Smoke” salsa for Brandon’s bachelor dinner party
. . . People entering a restaurant when they saw our bus pull in, rushed to get ahead of us . . . Diane told us how fast the eighteen days would pass by and then likened it to a roll of toilet paper nearly used up - a metaphor for life? . . . I felt ignorant when one waitress told me she was from Eritrea and I could only say I’ve forgotten my geography, where is that? - Near Ethiopia and Sudan . . . The city of New York is huge and it still works somewhat sensibly . . . Our neighbors are so good to look after our house and yard while we were away . . . The list must end. It was a great trip! My favorite poem, Ithaka, was written by the Greek poet Constantine Cavafy. It begins: “When you set out for Ithaka/ ask that your way be long,/ full of adventure, full of instruction.” With that I say farewell to the journey.
