I do

Doing recollections of trips like this at one sitting seems more and more daunting the older I become.  I’ll do the best I can muster, hopefully I don’t leave out anything too interesting.

Our flight out on Friday morning was an early one, scheduled to hit the sky before 7AM, meaning a 4:30AM alarm clock, yay.  We decided to just drive up there and park in long term parking, the last time I knew it was something like $8 a day.  Well it turns out it was $11 a day but there wasn’t much we could do about it.

We were flying Jet Blue which is probably the second best airline to fly behind Southwest.  They have no first class, electing to use the additional room to provide the best coach seating room around which of course I am a huge fan of with my long legs.  They also don’t charge you for your first piece of checked baggage, are generous with the free drinks/snacks, have a great on board entertainment system and have a very friendly staff.   This was the 3rd or 4th time I have used JetBlue, they are great. What wasn’t great is that JetBlue doesn’t have any direct Fort Myers to Philadelphia routes.  To get to PHL required us to go all the way up to Boston and then come back down via  short 45 minute flight. Oh well, it would be my first time in Boston at least, albeit confined to the walls of the Logan Airport.

The flight up to Boston went smoothly.  I passed the time reading a magazine and then playing Battle Heart on my phone. Mobile gaming is a great way to make long flights go by quickly.  We landed in pretty dreary weather.  The Logan Airport struck me as being pretty old looking but fine otherwise.  We got some bad news when looking at the outgoing flight board, the flight to Philadelphia was pushed back an additional hour or so, meaning our already 90 minute layover just got a lot longer. Cindy and I grabbed some DD coffee to help pass the time.  I also downloaded the original Plants vs Zombies onto my Galaxy Tab for more on plane time wasting. The delay in Boston made my original plan to stop and see Todd’s new house prior to the rehearsal dinner Friday night impossible, there just would not be any time to do it. The flight finally took off, it was so short that once we hit cruising altitude it felt like we almost immediately started our initial descent.  I only got a few levels of PvZ done.

We hopped off the plane, grabbed our luggage and then jumped on a shuttle bus to Enterprise whom we were renting a car from.  As we approached the office the bus driver called ahead to let the staff know how many customers were coming in.  When we got off the van their staff was out front waiting to personally greet each and every one of us and escort us to the front desk.  I was amazed.  Our clerk was a young girl that exuded friendliness and eagerness to serve.  After handling the paper work she walked us outside and gave us a choice of three vehicles. We chose a Camry, thinking it might get the best gas mileage.  Since I had a Camry Hybrid for a few years I already knew they were nice cars. Our clerk hopped in and started the car up for us, turned on the AC and then did a quick walk around.  She sent us on our way with a smile and a wave, concluding what was the best rental car customer service experience of my life.

The Camry was a very nice vehicle, a more refined version of what I already thought was a great car in 2007.  I brought along the recently purchased TomTom gps to route us to the hotel we were staying at.  Todd warned me that we could wind up driving through a massive storm that rolled through Reading, but somehow we managed to miss it,  only driving through some steady but manageable rain.  Our driving plan was not the most efficient gas or time wise.  We were going to the hotel in Lancaster which was west and south of Reading and then having to haul ass back in the opposite direction.  It was sort of like flying to Boston to get to Philadelphia.

The hotel we were staying at was old but quaint, looking like not a whole lot had been updated since it opened in the 60’s.  We didn’t have time to check much out as we quickly cleaned up, changed and got back in the car to get to the rehearsal dinner which started at 6.  I knew we were not going to get there on time.  I was surprised that we managed to get there by 6:15, beating my brother Todd and his girlfriend by a minute whom pulled in to the Canal Street parking lot after us.  Cindy had met my dad, step mom and brother Patrick before but that was it, everyone else was a new face to her.  Luckily Cindy is an outgoing personality and has no issue meeting and greeting new people, unlike me.

Canal Street Pub is an old Reading factory building.  I don’t recall ever visiting the place before when I lived in the greater Reading area although I heard of it many times.  The area it is located it rather scary looking as the building on the other side of the parking lot pictured shows.  As is the case with much of Reading, it’s a very old and dilapidated place.

We found the group inside, as expected we were the last to arrive.  I had never met any of Meghan’s husband to be Paul’s family.  His parents, especially his mom, was very outgoing and friendly.  We hung out, drank and ate appetizers for awhile.  I talked to a number of people but found myself hanging with Patrick the most.  I had been reading about his latest adventures on Facebook including spinning out his VW going 60mph on the PA Turnpike and his very bizarre extended stay in Turkey for his job.  Getting a firsthand account of his very interesting life was even better.

I used the the Coors Light on hand to help take the edge off the anxiety I normally feel in these large social situations.  We sat down for a great tasting dinner which was filled with lots of laughs and smiles.  Paul and Meg have always seemed like a truly in love couple and that perception was only strengthened at the dinner.  It was cool.

At the meal I talked to Todd about a plan to see his house.  He also had mentioned that his 6 or 7 year old computer was running like shit so that came up as a possible to do item while I was there.  I told him we could stop by during the day on Saturday since the wedding wasn’t until 4:30.  The plan was set in action.  By the time we went to bed Friday night we were approaching our 18th hour of being awake, sleep was welcomed.  Unfortunately that sleep wasn’t of high quality.  The bed itself felt comfortable enough, I didn’t wake up with an aching back or anything like that.  I did however have a very restless night of sleep, a theme that carried through the entire trip.  Each night it felt like I was waking up a lot, into the double digit amount of times.

After grabbing breakfast and some coffee at the thankfully near by Dunkin Donuts we headed towards the Reading area.  I wanted to show Cindy a few things on the way to my brother’s house.  The first stop was the Knauers area where my elementary school and the business my mom worked at for many years are located.  Cindy, who has been in Florida all of her life was really impressed by the rolling hills, mature trees, rural setting and non-development style old construction of my old stomping grounds.  It was about as different from Florida as you can get.

Our next stop was Gouglersville, one of the two centers of my existence as a child.  Colonial Hills bowling alley which was torn down years ago was the second.  We parked in the middle of the town, right in front of what used to be Brightbill’s General Store.  Cindy could hardly believe what looked to be a generic house was once the main retail establishment of the town.  Almost my entire baseball card collection as a kid came from the packs of cards I would buy from Brightbill’s.

Looking around the center of Gouglersville some things had changed but the view towards the north had not, the two churches that have sat on opposite sides of the street remain the same as they did from my earliest childhood recollections.  What was not anything like my childhood was my old house which was the next stop.

I grew up up in an OLD farm house.  If I am not mistaken, it was constructed back in the early 1900’s.  When my parents were still married they did some renovations to the place.  The kitchen was updated and the attic was finished and turned into a shared bedroom that Todd and I occupied.  When my dad and Teresa moved into the place in the late 80’s they did a very large renovation which touched nearly every room in the house AND included a large two story addition.  The end result was my childhood home being transformed into something far different than I experienced.

Well when my dad sold the place prior to moving out to New Mexico, the new owner went to an entirely new level.  The new owner has made incredible upgrades to the place, far too many to list.  The most visible from the road was the large stand alone two car garage.  The property looked absolutely beautiful.  It’s very hard to believe it’s the same place I spent 16 or 17 years calling home.

Across the street from my old house was another farm that was a staple growing up.  I used to enjoy interacting with the sheep and donkey that lived there.  I even took care of the neighbor’s farm animals a couple times when they were out of town.  Well the front gate to the property is now wide open and the property appears overgrown and abandoned.  The old owner died years ago and I am not sure what happened to his two children.  The place is up for an estate sale auction in August.  Seeing the property in this condition pulled a bit at my inner sadness strings.

The owners of my my old house evidently have two large unrestrained dogs.  They announced our presence with barking.  Cindy was afraid of them advancing on us with unfriendly intentions.  I was more concerned about the dogs having the ability to walk onto the road where they could be hit, something that happened to one of my dad’s dogs in the past.  Regardless we used that as our cue to head out.  I did a U-turn in Dick’s old field and pulled away.  The next stop was Todd’s place although almost everywhere we went I was giving Cindy a Cliff Notes version of how that area tied into my past life as a Pennsylvanian.

Todd moved into this new place with his girlfriend several months ago.  His old place was really nice and large.  This new place upped the bar in both areas.   The place is located in a relatively new development very close to Green Valley Country Club, the pool we used to frequent most days in the summer growing up.  The house is huge and beautiful, with way more than enough room for the two of them them and their respective kids. (Todd and his girlfriend both have a daughter)  The inside of the place looked spotless (except for Todd’s office), like it was being set up for an open house.  I would not want to be the one responsible for cleaning it.

The landscaping and backyard were beautiful as well, complete with a nice sized pool and tons and tons of river rock which filled a huge area.  We hung outside for awhile and talked.  Despite just meeting the day before, Cindy and Todd’s girlfriend Mindy were talking a lot.

Attention was then turned to Todd’s computer issues.  His old laptop was a mess, obviously crippled by malware.  Trying to do anything on it took eons, the hard drive activity light was on non-stop, even when sitting at an empty desktop.  I told Todd because of the age of the computer it was hardly worth the time to try to eliminate all of the spyware.  I suggested he would be better served getting a new laptop and having me pull the important data across.  He agreed with my plan and we decided to do a quick run to Best Buy to grab some new hardware.  It was already closing in on noon so I knew that time was going to be an issue. While we were shopping for laptops Cindy and Mindy went out on their own, doing some shopping and picking us up lunch to eat at the house.

Picking out a laptop was not as quick of a process as I hoped.  After a lot of searching we finally landed on a 17 inch Sony system.  Of course we picked the model that they currently did not have in stock.  We opted for the smaller 15 inch Sony that was next to it.  It was one of those models that has a screen that flips 180 degrees to allow you to use the system as a Windows 8 tablet.  Todd was talking about using a laptop in the field for his work to increase his efficiency.  Something like this would help him do that.

So we grab the laptop, a copy of Office 2013 and a small thumb drive to help me move files.  We got back to the house and I got busy.  I had the new laptop up and connected to the internet quickly.  What I couldn’t do quickly was transfer files quickly between the old laptop and the new one.  The file transfer to the thumb drive was excruciatingly slow.  I wound up working on the system until almost 2:30 and still was only part of the way done.  We had to to get out of there to fly back to the hotel, shower, change and then get to the wedding slated to start at 4:30.

It was not much fun for Cindy getting ready under such a time crunch.  The wedding site was further away then I thought it was.  We pulled into the parking lot of the outdoor wedding location at 4:29.  Todd once again pulled in right after us.  I heard how he was literally driving 100 mph most of the way to get there from Mindy.  Thankfully the ceremony started a few minutes late so we didn’t miss anything.  The outdoor setting for the vows was beautiful and the weather, which had been pretty much terrible the prior 4-5 days was absolutely perfect with temps in the 70’s with low humidity.

The vow exchange ceremony was nice and quick.  In less than 15 minutes it was done and the celebration could start.  There were some of my dad’s old friends at the wedding, some of which I had not seen in literally 25-30 years.  It was quite strange to see somebody that just emerged from a 30 year time machine trip.  They sound the same but obviously look much different then what was in my minds eye, an awkward thing for me to digest.

The reception was held under a a large tent.  Meg and Paul were unconventional but in my opinion more sensible with their wedding planning.  They tried to keep costs under control while keeping things fun.  My step mom made the beautiful flower arrangements, the table decorations were hand made and the open bar was stocked with stuff that was bought off the shelf instead of paying an outrageous mark up for alcohol.   Dinner was a taco station with desert options of S’mores and/or root beer floats.  I found it to be pretty awesome to shun the drop your pants and bend over money trap most married couples find themselves entering when doing by the book wedding planning.

The abundant access to alcohol lead to lots of fun as you can imagine.  Dancing, laughing and smiles were non-stop as you looked around the reception.  Cindy and I stepped away briefly to take a look at a huge pack of horses located in a field down the hill. At first they were scared of Cindy and I.  After a few minutes they warmed up, a few even let Cindy pet them.  There were several baby horses mixed in that were especially cute.

I was on a pretty steady flow of Miller Lite.  Drinking that much beer meant a lot of need to hit a bathroom.  They had an odd arrangement where there was only one toilet flagged as being for men with two available to women.  This resulted in a decent size line for the mens room most of the evening.  I stood in the line a couple times but the rest of the time I either used a tree or ducked into one of the empty ladies rooms while Cindy stood guard. It was funny. My alcohol consumption reached sufficient levels that I allowed myself to be dragged onto the dance floor. I was out there dancing awkwardly for quite awhile.  Luckily everyone was as drunk or more so than I was so nobody noticed or cared. It was fun.

There were a lot of cool moments during the night with my dad supplying one of them.  He was pegged to give a speech.  He thought it would be funny if he deliberately placed a piece of toilet paper in his shoe and drug it behind him.  As he hobbled to the center of the dance floor some guy that was not in on the joke ran out to let dad know about the TP on his shoe. Later dad let him know it was on purpose.  Dad followed up with an off the cuff, deep, meaningful, speech that tied in one of Meghan’s favorite childhood books into a framework to navigate life by.  It was very well delivered and received tremendous applause from the entire crowd.  I was proud of him in that moment. Despite dad’s cantankerous, sarcastic and frustrating parts of his personality he also is insightful, emotional and intellectual.  It was nice to see all three of those positive traits on display in his speech.

Overall the reception was just one huge positive experience for all involved.  To me and surely everyone else at the ceremony, it is clear that Paul and Meg are one of those rare examples of just getting it right.  You can tell how connected they are to each other and for all the right reasons.  Hopefully this was the start of a long and happy life for the two of them as husband and wife.

Cindy of course drove us home due to my large consumption of Miller Lites.  We had some loose ideas about driving to Rehoboth Beach for the day on Sunday but dad invited us to breakfast in the hotel lobby on Sunday morning.  Since it was Father’s Day I certainly needed to accept the invitation.  The change of plans also meant I could throw out the possibility to Todd of my stopping by for the second time in as many days to conclude my computer migration work.

Cindy and I walked up the Dunkin Donuts that was 1/4 mile away before meeting up with my dad in the attached hotel restaurant.  The size of our breakfast group steadily grew.  Initially it was just myself, Cindy, my dad and my step mom.  Patrick and his girlfriend joined us next, followed by the newlyweds, the maid of honor and finally Paul’s parents.  We heard stories of how the partying continued at the hotel bar past 2AM, sheesh.

I had a feeling my dad, whom always winds up paying for most everything when it comes to family get togethers, would try to pay for everyone’s breakfast buffet. I managed to pay the check for everyone at the table  (besides Pauls parents who came later) on the down low on the way back from the bathroom.  If there is a meal you want to pick up a check for a large table, it’s breakfast.  The bill was reasonable even with putting food in nine mouths.

After a nice meal we all said our goodbyes.  My dad was driving Patrick and his girlfriend back to Pittsburgh.  Pat had to get right back into his globe hopping job, flying out for Japan on Monday.  We saw them as we walked out to the rental car. Dad, Patrick and I posed for one last picture.

So our Sunday plan was now to do some more local sight seeing before heading back to Todd’s place.  I thought it would be cool to take Cindy up to see one of Berks County’s oddest but most famous tourist attractions, the Pagoda.  For some reason right around the turn of the 20th century somebody decided it would be cool to put an authentic looking Asian pagoda at the top of Mount Penn.  It was to be part of a resort area which no longer exists today.

I have of course visited the Pagoda many times over my life and had it’s glowing red outline be a staple of many nighttime views of the Reading area.  However I never did as extensive or as informative of a visit as I did this time around.  The drive to the Pagoda was interesting for Cindy.  She found the old architecture in Reading to be very beautiful and the twisting drive up Duryea Drive to be equally so.  When we got up there it was about 11:45 , 15 minutes before the inside of the Pagoda opens up.

We decided to waste some time walking a nearby trail that leads down the mountain.  We only wandered less than a half mile away but it was far enough that it allowed us to get a totally different perspective while taking in the sights and sounds of a Pennsylvania forest.  When we returned the doors were open for business.

Now I have been inside the Pagoda before but I don’t recall ever being in anything besides the gift shop on the main floor.  I think the times I was inside the upper floors were closed for one reason or another, probably construction related.  Speaking of construction, there has been a lot of it required to keep the Pagoda in good condition well past it’s 100th birthday.  The building has undergone major renovations several times during it’s lifetime.

The upper floors were open for visitors so Cindy and I were certainly going to take advantage of it.  The smell of sauerkraut for the hot dogs filled the inside of the building all the way into the upper floors.  One each floor as you ascended there were a number of framed post cards that outlined the history of the Pagoda which I found very interesting.  I was most intrigued by the fact that around World War 2 the Pagoda was shut down and it’s lights shut off to prevent it from being an easy ground marking point for potential enemy air raids.  There was also an outcry from the local community to tear the Japanese inspired structure down since Japan at the time was our mortal enemy. I’m glad calmer heads prevailed.

Cindy and I climbed to the 6th floor which has an Asian bell hung from the middle of it.  It was cool getting an even higher perspective of the greater Reading area.  Back down at the gift shop which was staffed by a very sweet old lady lady, Cindy perused the large amount of Pagoda themed merchandise.  We walked away with a Pagoda jigsaw puzzle for our neighbor who was tending Tuki, some postcards and a pagoda shaped cookie cutter which Cindy will put to good use.

On our way down from the pagoda I went a different direction, letting Cindy see more of the very old Reading architecture.  On the way to Todd’s place we stopped for lunch at another longtime Berks country tradition, V&S sandwiches. Cindy and I both enjoyed a slice of their square Sicilian pizza, something I had not had in forever.  We enjoyed it while looking out the front window of the totally renovated building which is nothing like the original tiny sandwich shop that once stood there.

While we were eating Todd texted, asking me if I wanted to stop and get two things he was going to need for the new laptop, an external dvd drive since it didn’t have one and a new external HDD for back up since his old one appeared to be dead.  It made sense for me to get them since I knew what to grab.  So after swinging by Best Buy, Cindy and I arrived back at Todd’s place.  I felt bad that Cindy had to hang out while I did the work but she was ok splitting her time between my niece Caroline, their dog Katie, Mindy and just hanging out in general.

I set up Todd’s new PC with Start Menu 8 from IOBit so he could still utilize the Windows 8 environment in a Windows 7 manner primarily.  I also reinstalled the main software he uses and then performed the painfully slow copying of data files and pictures from the old, slower than shit laptop, to the new one.  When I was copying files off the old system I was getting miserable transfer rates of 2mb-5mb a second.  When I dumped the files to the new laptop via the fast USB 3.0 port I was getting 50mb plus for most of the time.

I also set up Todd’s printers, configured a Dropbox account for him and set up his new back up drive.  In total I think I spent another 3 hours or so completing the work.  Sure it wasn’t the way I thought a good chunk of the weekend would be consumed but at the same time I was happy to be able to help Todd out of his technical conundrum.  We headed out somewhere around 5pm for our hotel in Lancaster.

On our way back I was on a quest to find a a slice of Wixon’s wet bottom shoo fly pie for Cindy.  We stopped at a Giant, and two convenience stores searching for them and struck out.  A kind man in Giant said he remembers seeing shoo fly at Weis Markets.  After getting sent on a bit of a wild goose chase by the GPS we did indeed find shoo fly pie although it wasn’t Wixons, rather something made by the bakery at Weis.  Oh well it’s better than nothing.

We decided to walk to our dinner destination, Friendly’s, which was in the same shopping center as Dunkin Donuts.  Friendly’s is another place that I have not frequented since moving to Florida so I thought it would be fun.  Cindy had never set foot inside of a Friendly’s in her lifetime.  I think almost all Friendly’s are identical inside, this location looked exactly the same as every other one I ever been in with wall to wall booths and old fashioned/tacky decorations.  It is safe to say the powers that be at the Friendly’s corporate offices have never felt the need to do a refresh of their brand image in the last 30 years. Cindy and I had decent meals but skipped the normally customary famous Friendly’s ice cream for desert since we had two small shoo fly pies waiting for us in the hotel room.

Cindy was not all that impressed by the Weis pie.  It was much thicker, dry and crumbier than what you get from Wixons.  I thought it was not bad but felt bad I couldn’t find the real deal to share with Cindy.  I probably should have looked in the Reading area.  I know I used to be able to always get Wixons pie at Redners.

Monday morning we had a 4:30 alarm set for our trip back to Fort Myers.  Our flight was scheduled to depart at 8:40 but with the wildcard of morning traffic we wanted to be out the door by 5AM or so.  We hit our goal more or less and after hitting the nearby Dunkin Donuts one last time, hit the road.  The drive to the airport went smoothly, only hitting minimal traffic.  On the way there I texted my buddy Scott who happens to be a DJ on Y-102, the most popular radio station in the Reading area.  I told him I was on my way to the airport and had Y-102 on the radio.  Scott told me when he went on the air a little after six  he would give me a shout out.  As promised, he did deliver a nice mention of me which Cindy thought was cool.

When we dropped off the Camry I was a little nervous.  The car had the sport package which includes additional ground effects body panels including a low front spoiler.  The driveway to Todd’s house contains a very steep angle which caused the front spoiler to drag a bit upon pulling into and out of their driveway. I noticed afterwards some scrape marks on the underside of the spoiler.  I hoped the Enterprise guy checking in would not notice them.  If he did I already had a speech in my head where I would declare my innocence and that those scrapes had to be there already.  Luckily I didn’t need the song and dance.

Our trip back to Fort Myers was pretty uneventful.  There were no major delays this time and I spent most of my time in air working on completing adventure mode in PvZ.  I got the 15% low battery warning in the middle of the final boss fight so I had to shut down.  (I completed it later last night at home after charging the tablet a bit.)  On the way home we had to stop at Target to pick up a couple items, it was quite nice to finally walk back into the house.

Last night there were a number of things to do but we still found time to watch the Game of Thrones finale amidst a raging thunderstorm that was glitching power for quite awhile.  It looks like rainy season has arrived in our area with a bang.  I could tell by looking at the yard that it rained hard enough to cause some major standing water for a period of time.

The trip was the first time Cindy and I flew anywhere together.  As expected we made for fine travel partners.  If you can drive across country in a van for 2 weeks, a plane ride is nothing.  Cindy had a smile and hug for pretty much everyone she met and had no problem fitting right in.   We seem to do well in each other’s space.

Here is a link to all of the pictures from the trip.