More Photos from PA

Here are some photos from PA that John sent today.  I still can't quite imagine what it's like.  Note the American Flags on almost every photo (my comment).  This is what John has to say...

"I finally got out of Carnegie. I took some photos of my neighbors in the industrial park, also a few photos of Carnegie.  Not much to see - a few churches, but did not feel like stopping. The picture of the hill to the hotel is much steeper than it looks, I would say a 35 degree incline. Also photos of Westinghouse office - note picture of sign for privileged parking for fuel efficient vehicles.  I need to find out if my bike qualifies so I can park up front. The food is gourmet at work; they call it the culinary center not the cafeteria. Also photo of azaleas outside hotel. These are what all the northerners rave about."

beer in PA

John is getting settled into his job at Westinghouse.  Moving this weekend to another temporary hotel, though - seems that the Extended Stay in Carnegie is too far away, up on top of a hill ...  I found the 2nd floor of a horse barn that was renting, but it was too expensive and probably too far away as well.  Would have been fun, though.  Wonder what Jubilee would think of sleeping over horses!

Anyway, this is the latest from John:

 "...after getting settled in at the Extended Stay Suites I went to the grocery store to stock up on food. I walked around the store twice looking for beer then decided to ask the manager. He sort of chuckled and said "you want beer you have to go to a beer distributor if you want wine or liquor you need to go to the liquor store". The next day I found a beer distributor in Carnegie and bought a case of Augustiner Premium Lager beer brewed by Iron City. I then asked how about a 6 pack of Iron City beer and he said we don't sell 6 packs only cases, you have buy one of those in a bar!"  

meanwhile

Update:  7PM, John is in the home stretch.  He had just crossed the PA border and was about 40 miles away from the Extended Stay, where he has reservations.  Jeep was running like a top, cool and steady.  He stayed at a Days Inn outside of Savannah last night, had a free coupon for breakfast at Denny's and was astounded at the amount of food they wanted to give him - six pancakes (for one person!), eggs, bacon, 16 ounce glass of orange juice!  Only in America, he said.  Oh, and West Virginia is beautiful.

No news from John this morning means that he's still rolling (I think.)

rolling at last!

Update #2: As of 7PM, John was just outside of Savannah.  Jeep is running OK as long as he keeps his speed at about 65mph.  Not sure how much longer he'll drive tonight.  Not sure how he's going to fare over the mountains in West Virginia tomorrow.

Update: John called around noon and said guess where I am.  He was only in Sebastian.  The Jeep had started overheating, so he pulled off, put water in, hobbled over to US1 in search of an autoparts store where he could get a new pressure cap for the coolant overflow.  I found a Jeep dealership in Melbourne and called to see if they had the cap.  They did, so John drove up to get it.  He blames BJ for getting him an inferior cap that cracked.  Anyway, as of 1:30PM he was back onto I95.  He thinks he only lost about 3 hours.  Hmmmm.  It seems that the trickiest part of these trips is getting out of Florida! 

A little after 8 this morning ...

The story of the bonsai is here.

222971

The Jeep is getting ready to roll ... tomorrow morning ...

the shrubs

These are the shrubs as they look today (May 20th, 2010).  We planted them awhile ago to give some cover to the backyard, which was exposed when we finally took down the rickety old rotten wooden fence.  The summer rains have started, and I want to keep track of how fast they will grow.

Meanwhile, it looks as if we may be about to embark on the next American adventure, but I still can't be sure.  Background checks and whatever else seem to have taken forever, and as of yesterday, they said that John wouldn't know if he started work in Cranberry TWP, PA on Monday until COB today.  Who knows what COB means?!  I mean, these guys must be from the military or something (or else it's a different world than we imagine).  After some googling, we found out that COB means "Close of Business" ...  If John reports for duty on Monday, that means he has to leave tomorrow morning!  I'll believe all of this when it happens.

Another shrub photo: