12 Oakdale

I’d been obsessing about testing negative for Covid, a requirement to join our birding tour. My anxiety level went even higher when a couple were forced to drop out because he tested positive. Yikes. Finally time to test, and all good. Both Grant and I are negative. Which I was sure we would be, since we really haven’t been around anyone. Except for all the people at Bob’s funeral 11 days ago. Surely, we’d have symptoms by now. Except Patten tested positive and didn’t feel bad. Round and round the hamster wheel turned. What a relief to be done with that! We drove really long the first day and got to Fayetteville, North Carolina, staying at the Baymont by Wyndham, mostly because it claimed a hot breakfast. That is always desirable so we can eat, then get on the road, rather than spending an hour debating where to go. Evidently, Wyndham and I have different definitions of “hot breakfast”. The cereal choices were corn flakes or Fruit Loops.  Another long day to Carney’s Corner, New Je...

Our second trip to visit Spaulding and Molly. We were able to sandwich ourselves into their hectic schedules since I knew this weekend they wouldn’t be doing long distance training runs. Their marathon is next weekend; this would be taper week.  Because our living area is on the basement level, and the rest of the house is up a flight of stairs, I was extremely cognizant of making as few trips up and down as possible. No random runs up or down for a forgotten item. Actually, no runs at all. Each stair was a right foot, then left foot process. Would that there were handrails.  We mostly hung out at home. Saturday, Spaulding and Grant made beer on Saturday while Mollie had to go into work to lead a training session for math teachers. Later, the three of them worked on the terraced backyard, getting the drip system configured for the vegetables Molly planted. Granddog Emma and I supervised.  I also identified, with the help of the Merlin sound app, spotted towhees, western c...