On Memorial Day Weekend, my wife and I were supposed to make a trip to Richmond on Saturday the 25th and return on Sunday the 26th. The occasion was the retirement of my friend Stanley Morton, a Presbyterian Pastor. He will leave his Richmond pulpit next month and return to Lancaster.
Stanley and his wife Terry are Godparents to the three of our six kids and longtime friends.
Trips with me can get complicated and I love the change process. This simple trip became a bit more complicated when my son Nigel came from Minnesota for a visit. He joined us. We stayed with our daughter Lauren who lives in Richmond. She just had to take out a sleeping mat for Nigel. Then my father-in-law had a medical procedure on Tuesday, the 28th, so my wife decided to stay with him after we left Richmond. And Nigel decided to stay till the 28th with his sister.
Now the trip got really complicated. On the morning of Sunday, the 26th, my wife and I left Richmond and drove together to Arlington, Va. She dropped me at the Metro station and drove north to her dad’s house in Damascus, Md. Arlington allowed her to take the shortest route north while I continued northeast. I took the Metro to Union Station in DC. When I got there, I looked at taking a MARC local train to Baltimore to save money, but taking a later Amtrak train to Philadelphia was the same price as two trains. So I took Amtrak to Philadelphia. In Philadelphia, I took a Keystone train to Lancaster.
On the 27th the three of us were in three states: Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
On Tuesday the 28th, Nigel took a train to Philadelphia from Virginia, and I met him at 30th St. Station. We took a Keystone train back to Lancaster. Annalisa drove from Damascus to Lancaster, picked up Prewash from my daughter Kiersten’s house and went home. She picked up Nigel at the Lancaster train station. I rode home, since I rode to the station.
Three people traveling and staying in five states, three long car trips, one Metro ride, two short bike rides and six train rides of 70 miles or more.
That is my kind of changed trip.
