From May 11 until just the wee hours of May 23, Lynda and I were on a road trip back to New England. The posts you saw during this time were written ahead and scheduled to go live at my normal posting days when I knew it would be difficult to post.

The reason for the timing of the trip was my 50 year reunion of graduating from URI, which was held May 17-18. Of course, other reasons exist to go back there. Our son now works at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. While we have seen him regularly at our place, we hadn’t to where he lived for close to three years. Also, I have family in the area, friends in the area, who I hadn’t seen since 2015.

The trip took much planning. Number of days to drive outbound. Where to stay. Which reunion events to attend. When to hold a family gathering. What kind of buddies gathering we could have. Who to meet up with outside of the main gatherings. Where to stay in New England. When to head home. Many pieces to fit together. I tried to arrange for several other meet-ups, but people were unavailable.

Surprisingly, all turned out well. I booked hotels for the 3-day outbound trip. Always before we’ve taken two days for this drive. When we neared our hotel the first night, Lynda thought it was ridiculous to stop so soon. But stop we did. A traffic tie-up the last half hour made the early stop seem closer to normal. The next day, the early stop seemed more normal. And getting to Worcester the third day seemed totally normal.

We had several days of meals with our son, who had to work every day. We saw the house they’re staying in, lots of the Holy Cross campus, and his office. I wouldn’t say we learned a lot about Worcester, but what we did see we like.

On Friday it was to Rhode Island for the reunion. Part of the day included a stop at the library special collections, which I’ll tell about in a future post. It was good to be on campus. I took time to go to the Memorial Union and visit old haunts, including the student senate chambers, where I spent so much time junior and senior years. My main complaint about the reunion was it wasn’t very well attended.

Saturday was our family gathering, partially catered and partially potluck. We had twenty attend overall, including a surprise visit by my half-sister, who flew up from Florida for the occasion. She got to meet family members she didn’t know before. This was a good time for all.

Lynda and I then rushed back to R.I. for the last reunion event. Sunday was a visit to the cemetery where my family is buried and a tour of places in Providence and Cranston, Then off to Cape Cod for two days, then reverse course with a stop in Worcester on the way out. The drive home we did the old-fashioned way: freestyle, with no plan and no reservations.

The first day heading home, I routed us over the new Cuomo Bridge north of NYC, just because I wanted to see it. Big mistake. That cost us close to an hour lost to heavy traffic. We stopped for the night in central Pennsylvania. The next day we ditched the stopped we had sort of planned at the Columbus zoo and just kept driving. We made it home around 1:15 a.m. Thursday morning after 18 hours of driving.

The trip was good. Maybe this was our last long driving trip. It sure took a lot out of us. Had we flown it would have been 9 days instead of 12. But it was a good trip. Good to see the old house and schools, friends from long ago, and family.

Trip 2 is coming soon. Not near as long a drive, but maybe the same number of days.