Happy Travels!!

So let's get the only downer thus far on this trip out of the way to start with and then move on to the happy stuff!

Tonight I was eating a wonderful spicy chicken southwestern salad for dinner and lost a tiny bit of filling from a bottom molar....not a surprise as it is one of the last old fillings left in my mouth from sometime in the middle 1970's, but not the sort of thing I wanted to have happen while I am less than half way through my trip.  I will call my dentist from home tomorrow morning and set up an appointment for as soon as I return.  MORE money having to be spent on my teeth just now is not exciting AT ALL!

There, that is the end of the bad news.

I am having a lot of fun thus far.

Day 1: actually got away from home on time, AND we didn't even forget anything we need for this trip...who says there are no miracles??!!!?  Those of you who know us and our scatterbrained attempts at packing will be amazed! (you are amazed, are you not??) 2.5 hours later we were at a town where my husband attended a diocesan meeting while I was blessed to spend that time with a former parishioner who is one of the most amazing women I have ever had the privilege of spending time with.  We shared and laughed and drank chai tea.  My husband picked me up at dinner time and we went for Philippine food for the very first time.  It was delicious.  My husband had some mango chicken with a spicy lime and pepper sauce.  I had kare-kare: beef shank cooked to the point of melting in my mouth and surrounded by bok choy and green beans in peanut sauce.  It was fantastic, way too much sweet sauce for this diabetic, but o well.........there are times when that is just how it is, haha.  I left as much of the sauce as I could, but wow, it was hard to do as it tasted so good.  Off to the next town after dinner, checking into our hotel just  before 9pm after another 2 hour drive.

Day 2: my husband headed into the city, an hour away, for Diocesan Council and I had breakfast with a good friend here at the hotel.  She and I did some looking around some of our favourite local haunts and then we too drove into the city for a fabulous oven baked sole and green bean lunch, perfect for me. A couple of intense hours of window shopping ensued before we drove back here.  She dropped me back at my hotel just as my husband also arrived. Then he and I went to the house of some other dear friends for a lovely curry dinner and a marvellous visit.  It has been a whole year since I last saw them and I have missed them very much.

Day 3:  today we had a most delicious breakfast that is provided to guests at the hotel restaurant.  It certainly beats out the complimentary breakfasts at most lower priced hotels.  There wasn't a pre-prepared, rubber, microwaveable omelet in sight!!  How do you spell "HALLELUJAH"!!?  Less money for the room and far better breakfast, plus, a "Lunch To Go".  We made use of that today.  Last night we took an order form down to the restaurant with our choice of sandwiches, drinks and veggies with dip, to be made and then picked up this morning.  It allowed us to stay for nearly the entire church service of our choice today before racing out during the last hymn and heading out on a 5 hour round trip back in the direction we had come from 2 days previously when this trip began. This time we had to overshoot the town from Friday's meeting, travelling another 30 minutes in order to participate in the 100th anniversary of a church in my husband's archdeanery.  It was packed out in that little church and very warm, but we all survived quite happily despite the heat.  There were a plethora of bishops and other clergy, a well thought out service that went off without a hitch, lovely old hymns and many funny stories of incidents from days long ago.  We raced out of there in a big hurry because we had to get back to THIS town again in time for my husband to attend a presentation by a former seminary prof who has just published a novel about zombies....yup, zombies....and my husband wanted to hear his philosophy as to why he wrote it and what he is hoping to accomplish with it in terms of outreach and mission.

Day 4 yet to come:  my husband is leaving early in the morning to return to the city.  He will meet a cousin there he has never met before. The man is from England and is visiting Canada for the first time.  They found each other during a mutual internet search on family trees and ancestry and are very excited to meet in person.  Then my husband heads a small distance out of the city to spend 4 days at a monastery with his colleagues at an annual conference. After he leaves I will meet up with a friend for breakfast and we will spend the morning catching up on each other's news.  I am hoping to spend part of the day getting some banking done, reading an excellent novel and vegging a bit in the evening in front of the massive flat screen tv in my hotel room.

My husband just phoned to say the zombie novel presentation is over and he is on his way back here to the hotel.  He is so sweet.  He is picking up a burger to go with the very late dinner I put together for him here in the hotel room and when he gets the occasional burger he always asks me if there is anything I can eat from the fast food venue, just in case there is actually something he could gift me with. As usual, there isn't, but he is always so concerned that if I am left to fend for my own dinner when we are out of town, I may not have found anything suitable.  He takes good care of me.

So, off to prepare the rest of the dinner I am making for him here.  Hopefully the forecast of another unusually warm autumn day holds for tomorrow.  I have a very long walk in mind for the afternoon.