November 21, 2008

Hi all,

I had a letter and photos all ready to be sent 3 weeks ago and my
computer decided to become stubborn and not send. I finally, with
the help of my very patient son and the phone, got it working and am
trying again.

As you can see from the first photo we crossed the bridge from NYC
into NJ which we had no intention of doing. Crossing the river yes,
but further north. This was because of our new GPS system and we
listened and came as we were told. Now we travel with the GPS on but
I have a map on my lap. Thank goodness it was Saturday morning and
not too late but there was still more traffic than we like to hassle.

We arrived here at New Windsor Conference Center (NWCC) later that
day and moved into our apartment. We are working with two other
couples who are a joy to work with. No one shuns the work and we
help each other out. It has been almost a month and it has gone so
fast. We have thoroughly enjoyed the time here. As we were driving
here the fall colors were still very vibrant and beautiful in many
places. They were especially colorful in MD. Now three weeks later
most of the the trees are bare so we have seen a real change. We have
also seen and felt it in the weather. It has gone from quite warm to
cold. It is a different cold that CA. One is it doesn't stay cold
all day at home and it is not such a biting cold. It has been a
pleasant and different adventure being here this time of the year.
We don't want to get in a rut. This morning we had our first snowfall
and it was beautiful. The snow did not stay long but it was nice.

We have two days off in the middle of the week and once we went to
Bethesda spent the night. We stayed at the Navy Lodge at the
National Naval Medical Center and everything we needed was within
walking distance; shopping, eating and coffee shop for reading the
newspaper and coffee in the morning. These were all at the
hospital. It was huge and obviously well equipped.

Wednesday we drove up to Lancaster, PA and spent the night. We got a
place through Priceline.com and it turned out to be a resort and
conference center. We thought that was rather humorous. But it was
a very nice place to stay. We got there in time to purchase tickets
at the nearby American Music Theater for their 3:00 PM performance
of their Christmas Show Wednesday. They had 14 male and female
singers and dancers and 8 members in the band. Among many things we
were entertained by Alvin and the Chipmunks and Elvis. The Hawaiian
man sounded exactly like Elvis and even when he wasn't impersonating
him, he sounded a lot like Elvis. The singers were fantastic. The
bass was outstanding and could he ever hit those low notes. The
pianist played a beautiful rendition of O Holy Night. They closed
with Let There Be Peace on Earth which was touching. It was a great,
well spent 2 hours. It really put us in the mood for Christmas and
the snow today helped

Last Saturday night we had a four hour power failure. It was about 4
PM so the cooks were preparing dinner. They quickly changed the menu
and a couple of hours later we had a "candle light" dinner which
everyone thought had a lot of atmosphere. Behind the scenes, the
staff went into action getting us small battery powered lanterns for
each room, reassuring our guests and informing them what we knew. At
first it was said that it would be 5-8 hours before we would have
energy. It was only four hours and we were all pleasantly surprised
and relieved. Some of our guests were on the 4th floor and they
carefully walked down the flights with no accidents. We had a lot
of compliments from them at how well it was handled. It was a first
for us to be here and have a power failure.

We will be spending Thanksgiving in Thurmont with my aunt and cousins
so we will at least be with family. We do miss being with our own
children but they will be together or with other family.

We plan to leave MD on Friday after Thanksgiving as the conference
center will close for four days and our time is up. We plan to take
a southwesterly route to get to I-40 which we hope we can take across
the mid west and west.

We wish you all a very Happy healthy Thanksgiving and enjoy
yourselves. Write when you can. It is great to hear from you.

Love and Blessings,

Mom, Dad.
Grandmother and Granddaddy
Ric and Jan(ice)