Convention 2000
The Trip Back
Sam
Leen and I left at 7am Monday morning, around the same time famous left.
We took a different route at first: 50 West to 28 North, past Dulles Airport,
to Rt. 7. I used to live in Round Hill, Virginia, you see, and Rt. 7, from
Winchester to Leesburg, was my old stomping grounds, in a sense. We took
Rt. 7 west to Leesburg, which I didn't particularly recognize, then to
Purcellville, which I did. There's where my high school was. Continuing
on, we got to Round Hill, and I got to see my old church again. Then we
turned down a series of side streets, passing in and out of Airmont, which
used to consist of maybe four buildings and now consists of a dozen or two.
It was the only town around there I definitely recognized as being quite
built up since I saw it last. Eventually, we got to my old house, and it was
great to see it again and nice to show Darleen where I used to live.
It's much changed: all the fencing around the 10.5 acre plot was removed,
and a small access drive was added to the other side of the property from the
driveway. The house was repainted, I think, and a very nice front porch was
added across the entire from length of the house. We kept going and eventually
rejoined Rt. 7 in Winchester, then got on I-81. We passed through West
Virginia in 22 minutes and Maryland in 11, and headed back into Pennsylvania.
We liked Rt. 209 so much on the way down, we decided to get on it earlier
this time, skipping I-80 altogether in exchange for a shorter distance.
Unfortunately, while the part of 209 that's north of I-80 is very cool, the
part south of it is not. We travelled through, by my count, every town in
Pennsylvania. The road went through all kinds of stoplights and took all
kinds of turns. We lost an hour, maybe more, not continuing up I-81 longer.
When at last we reached I-84, we stayed on it through New York,
Connecticut, and way into eastern Massachusetts, bypassing Springfield.
We got home around 9pm, after a 14 hour trip. That night, we were so
insanely tired, Leen collapsed on the sofa and didn't take long to fall
asleep. I could barely rouse her to go up to bed, and when she did, she
fell back on the bed, clothes on, above the blankets, and was out cold.
Thank goodness I didn't have to work the next day.
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