Day 11

We left John and Liz after lunch on Monday, Day 10 and drove the short distance (for us now) to Utica NY in about 150 miles and 3 hours east. We checked in and dropped our luggage at our hotel then drove (what felt like next door) 45 minutes to Cousin Lanie’s house. Rain found us for the first time on our Journey. We were driving through the low hills and foothills north of Utica and the sky’s opened. Other than driving a bit slower, much to the chagrin of those behind me, all the rain did was to wash some of the dead bugs off the car.

My cousins name is Elaine, but those of us who have known her for at least 6 decades can call her Lanie. By coincidence and good fortune her brother, Alan, (oddly known as Alan) and his wife Peggy were up from down south visiting and we had a mini family reunion. Lanie’s next door neighbor Kim rounded out the party.

Rosie took one look at Lanie’s huge yard and took off running large loops and figure 8’s yelling back, “Whoo hoo! Be back in a while!! Have a nice visit,” and was gone.

After some very welcome XOXO’s the evening progressed much like the previous with a lot of catching-up-with and wacha-been-doin talk (and laughs.)

Again, too early we had to say goodbye. We really wanted to be back at our hotel before dark and the impending stronger thunderstorms.