Kinsler: We might be awake by Thursday
We are home at last, having driven Natalie’s luxurious Honda Accord to East Lansing, Michigan to visit our friend Cathe and thence to Wheeling, Illinois, which is near Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. After 11 bumpy hours back to Lancaster, we are exhausted from 1,100 miles of pavement, pavement in every stage of deterioration except new.
It was not an easy trip, for neither of us are back to full strength after Covid-19 came to call last Christmas. From the depths of our mutual creakiness we griped at each other, sometimes rather loudly. As good spouses will, we’ve forgotten all the details, at least for the present. But in honor of our trip, I finally commissioned our new dash camera, which makes remarkably clear (and stultifyingly dull) videos of everything we saw, both coming and going.
However, I’d forgotten that the new dashcam is also an effective cockpit voice recorder, and I have neglected to inform my beloved of this.
But our visits were thoroughly satisfactory, especially because our Chicago friends were celebrating Easter on the date specified by Greek Orthodox custom. Voula is a restaurant-grade chef and baker and I think there were 19 different desserts.
Natalie, as provident a spouse as ever lived, found a new hotel not far from our friends. Now, as little as I like hotels, I’m far more comfortable in accommodations where the knotty-pine front office has a praying hands painting overlooking a rack of brochures for Luray Caverns. This place was not so equipped: It was 18 stories tall with spare beige hallways and large windows. A large wedding and a senior prom were scheduled for two of the vast ballrooms.
“Nobody would ever guess that we live in a small town,” said Natalie as we stepped backward to gaze up at the upper floors. “We’re entirely too sophisticated.”
Then again, the lobby was decorated with a model of the entire structure rendered in Lego blocks. No further explanation was offered.
Mark Kinsler, kinsler33@gmail.com, lives in a circa 1888 house in Lancaster with a staircase whose ladder-like slope reminds us that the Victorians believed in a stern environment. He is tolerated by Natalie and the 2 cats.
This article originally appeared on Lancaster Eagle-Gazette: Kinsler: We might be awake by Thursday
