TRIP REPORT: PHIL SIDEL'S TRIP TO MARYLAND, VIRGINIA, NORTH CAROLINA, & FLORIDA

This was my first "post-retirement" trip, and it was wonderful. The whole idea started when Shawn Klimek (a strong climber member of The Explorers Club of Pittsburgh, now living in the DC area) posted an invitation to celebrate Thanksgiving at Table Rock near Linville Gorge, North Carolina.

That sounded good and would coincide with the plans of my good climbing buddy, Hugh Shinn who would be traveling north from Orlando (after 9 months working on a database project for Disney) and looking for some climbing at just that time.

Since I was heading that far south, I figured I could include visits to my Aunt Frances in Florida and other friends in Florida, my cousin Cary,NC (5 hours east of Linville Gorge) and perhaps my cousins and some climbing friends in the DC area on the loop home.

Irene wished she could go along, BUT -- she wouldn't want to wait around while I was doing my climbing thing ... and ... she only had four days accumulated vacation on her job. SO... she made arrangements to spend Thanksgiving week with our "kids" Jim in SanFrancisco and Julie & Randy in Santa Cruz. She would only use up 2 and a half vacation days and would have a great Thanksgiving.

When Irene scheduled to fly out early Saturday morning, I revised my itinerary to leave right after dropping her at the airport. My visits (and climbing) in Maryland and the DC area of Virginia would be at the start of my trip instead of on the way back.

It took a while to make my arrangements, but it all fell into place. By the time I left Pittsburgh I had worked out the order and approximate times of my stops along the way.

The trip ended up a few days shorter than planned because: 1 - I only spent one day climbing at Table Rock instead of the two days originally planned (I wasn't comfortable climbing in such a remote site in wintry weather when most of our ECP party was no longer there to help out in emergencies - and my partner Hugh concurred). 2 - The travel between Western NorthCarolina and Florida took a good half day less in each direction than I had anticipated. 3 - I spent about a day less in and around Bradenton than I had planned.

My final itinerary was:

• Drop off Irene at the Airport at 4:30am on Saturday Nov 23.
• Drive to Baltimore to visit and climb with my friend Mark "Indy" Kochte. (We climbed "Vertical" at Rock State Park on Saturday. On Sunday we had a great day of climbing with a group of friends at Sandy Hook Rocks, near Harper's Ferry)
• Sunday evening: Drive to Potomac, Md. to visit my cousin Steve Cook and his family. (Steve's wife, Shelby, takes her married surname seriously; she is a gourmet Cook - and every meal was special. And granddaughter Julia provided delightful entertainment)
• Tuesday morning: Drive to Oakton, Md. to visit with my cousin Chris Cook and his wife, June. (Chris and I enjoyed leisurely walks in Reston Park, near their home. We visited the Scully plantation, but it was closed on Tuesday. On Wednesday we visited with Chris's grandchildren Tom and Kathryn and their dad Charlie Evans.
• Wednesday evening I took a couple of hours to drop down and visit my old buddy and housemate (from Census Bureau days), Zig Decker and his wife Carol. Then I drove back to Oakland (a drive of from 20 minutes to an hour, depending on traffic and knowing your way).
• Thursday morning: Drive to Cary North Carolina to spend Thanksgiving with my cousin Susan Groene, her Aunt Mae (my Dad's first cousin), her daughter Louise, charming granddaughter Audrey, and Louise's fiancee, Steve. After a wonderful turkey dinner with Pennsylvania Dutch potato stuffing and all the trimmings, we trimmed the Christmas tree.
• Friday morning: Drive to Table Rock, near Linville Gorge (about 5 hours west of Cary), to set up my tent and get set up for camping before nightfall. Oh, My God! I suddenly discovered that I don't have my sleeping bag ... and it's very COLD! I felt I had enough warm clothes and extra tarps and blankets to make it, but those who had been through the previous two nights warned that I would need down -- and loaned me extra. Then Dave Miklo, who was leaving that night loaned me his sleeping bag, and I slept warmer than I would have been in my own. On Saturday Hugh and I climbed "Jim Dandy" a rather easy, pleasant 5.4.
• On Sunday all the other Explorers Club folks left for home. Hugh and I had planned to climb, but I was reluctant. The area is quite remote, and there wouldn't be many (if any) other climbers there, and I was unfamiliar with the area and the climbs, and it was quite cold. Recovery and evacuation would be very hard if any injury or problem arose, and I preferred to back out of the climbing plan for the day. Hugh concurred, and after Sunday breakfast in Morganton, we headed off in different directions. I headed toward Florida, driving south on US301 to its intersection with I-95, just north of Savanna.
• On Monday (Dec 2nd) I continued south to Beverly Hills, Fla., a bit southwest of Ocala. There I visited my old buddy from high school and college days, Bob White, and his wife Dianne. We had a great time -- partly reminiscing about old times and old friends, but more talking about a wide variety of things. Bob is very sharp and had good information on many, many topics. A lot of it he picked up through his interest in model railroading (Lionel "O Guage") and our history and geography from a railroad perspective.
• Wednesday morning I left Beverly Hills and drove south to Bradenton to visit my Aunt Frances in the Freedom Village retirement center. Aunt Frances is 94 (about the same age as Aunt Mae in Cary) and is doing very well. She finds that her memory is failing, but she gets around that problem by keeping a detailed journal. It is an excellent idea, and I have resolved to do the same.
• While visiting Aunt Frances, I took a few hours on Thursday afternoon to drive down to Pelican Cove in South Sarasota to visit our long-time friend from Columbia and Boston days, Ruby Abrahams. It was wonderful to see her after so many years, and she showed me around the beautiful Pelican Cove retirement commmunity.
• On Friday after lunch, Aunt Frances had a bridge game, so I took my leave to start my trip northward. I again got as far as the intersection of I-95 and US-301, just north of Savanna.
• Saturday morning I started early and, taking high-speed interstates (I-95 and I-26), I arrived before lunch at the home of my friend Chris Lamer and his partner Tracy. Chris had been the vice-president and a strong leader in the Pitt Outdoors Club in the mid-1990's. Now he is a pharmacist at the medical center of the Cherokee reservation on the southern border of Smoky Mountain National Park, west of Asheville. After lunch he took me to see the area, and we took a nice walk on a short trail that starts just at the edge of the reservation.
• Sunday morning, with a good route map from Chris, I started northward to Pittsburgh. With a brief stop in Strabane to drop off Dave Micklo's sleeping bag and some other items he had left for people to use at Table Rock I arrived home by about 8 in the evening. The only thing that marred that last leg of the trip was hearing on the radio how the Steelers lost to the Houston "Texans." Despite that, it was good to be home.