A true New Yorker and "the End of the Road Trip"

Ali and I woke up last Friday with every intention to go to Canada, but then we realized we were really quite tired after our trek and so we did not take on our friendly neighbors to the north--next time. So instead we went to check out the George Eastman House (founder of Kodak), where surprisingly enough I had never been. It turns out he was a bit of a weirdo (no offense to any Kodak enthusiasts or Eastman descendants who for some reason or other may be reading this) and he quite enjoyed decorating with dead animals. Afterward we enjoyed Julie & Julia. I thought it was nice to see a film about relatively normal people in good relationships. I know it's not very exotic, but some people, just a few mind you, do lead normal and even happy lives despite what our egotistic/voyeuristic blogging age may indicate.

Saturday I did the good thing and took my guest to the church historic sites. I mean I really couldn't let her fly back to California without at least going over to the Sacred Grove could I? And we actually had an interesting small world moment. We went on a tour of the Grandin Building (where the Book of Mormon was published) and the Sister missionary giving the tour was originally from Brazil and the other two girls on the tour with us were both from Brazil. They were having a grand old time talking in Portuguese when someone asked where one of them had served her mission. She responded, but frankly I don't recall where not being familiar with the country. Suffice it to say it was not one of the areas where I could recall anyone I know having served. But I did mention that we'd had a friend serve in Riberiao Preto and lo and behold we discovered that was where they were from and that one of their friends had served with Melanie! Granted, their description was tall, blond, and had motions indicating energy and busniess. But we were quite sure it was Mel. Anyway tours accomplished we had just enough time to catch some lunch, Abbotts Frozen Custard, and breeze on out to the airport so I could part with my faithful travelling companion.

At one point during the trip Ali asked me if it was like having a mission companion again, and I suppose in some ways it was. At any rates the most lingering effect of our travels together is my compulsive desire to share all my thoughts with her. Never fear Ali, I am working to master this impulse much to your relief I'm sure.

But no the real point of this now quite long post was to point out how truly I am a New Yorker (their chosen Civil War uniforms aside). Those of you who know me know that I enjoy literality. I find it funny and I can't quite say why. Well accross 8 of the states we traversed last week the standard exit notices were 1/2 mile with maybe 1/4 or 3/4 here and there. So in Pennsylvania we couldn't help noticing an exit marker for something like an 1/8 of a mile. How odd we thought. Then Thursday night as we were taking on the home stretch in New York we began to see exit signs with numbers like 4/10 of a mile. Sure, that's almost a half mile, but it's not quite 1/2 mile and we New Yorkers don't want to deceive you. But we may taunt you a bit.