ADVENTURES IN CHARLEY

 

CHARLEY ROCKS

 

I had a big birthday this year – in the middle of the Covid-19 Pandemic - so no parties, no big celebrations, no family reunion.  

Our seven children, spouses and thirteen grandchildren are spread across the country from New York to California to Florida and states in between.  We can’t fly or drive and risk using public restrooms and staying in hotels.  And different time zones made it difficult to even have a Zoom get-together to celebrate.  

A few weeks after my birthday, our son Darin, who lives here in Maryland, called and said he was taking us somewhere on Saturday.  “I need you and Jim to be ready at 6:00 in the morning” he said. “I will pick you up – but you can’t ask any questions.”   We were a little hesitant.  We're not usually morning people, but he kept promising it would be worth it, so we were ready when he pulled in our driveway.  

We drove through Maryland and Delaware, then up the Jersey turnpike, still trying to guess where we might be going.   We turned off on an exit and he pulled into a gas station.  He got out, made some phone calls, then got back in the car and handed us blindfolds and instructed us to put them on.  

 

We drove for another few minutes before he stopped again.  He lead us out of the car, one-by-one telling us to just stand together.  By now I was beginning to hear the familiar voices of our other children on his speaker phone.  When he told us to take off our masks everybody on the phone yelled “Happy Birthday” and we were standing in front of an RV with our name on it! 

 

To say it was a surprise was an understatement!  They had all decided that with the camper we would be able to travel safely and have the opportunity to visit them.  So far we have visited our families in Georgia and Florida, and have enjoyed many short trips just for fun and often take it to nearby restaurants for "curbside" breakfasts and dinners.  

As I write this we are sitting in the camper in a small park in Paradise Pennsylvania.  We come here occasionally, just for the night, so we can enjoy a “to-go”dinner from our favorite Amish restaurant “Bird-In-Hand”.

We named our camper Charley – after the poodle in John Stienbeck’s book “Travels With Charley”  (If you’ve never read the book, it’s a fun read about his trip across America in a camper, back in 1960’s). 

 

Stay tuned for more stories about our Adventures in Charley