Lots to talk about, but this is Readercon weekend, so it's already late and I'm not feeling particularly verbose at the moment. Haven't finished covering the trip to Illinois yet. We arrived a week ago Saturday, about an hour late since there were storms near Chicago that meant the planes had to take the scenic route to get into O'Hare. They said the extra time at the gate was to take on more fuel because of this, but I think the additional fuel was needed because everyone on the plane (including Beth) was toting a copy of the new Harry Potter book. But we got there and got the car (a Chrysler Concorde) and were finished with lunch by 2 and made it to Mom's house around five. Went out to dinner at Cracker Barrel and called it an evening.



The next day much of the Bartlett clan came over for a late lunch. I got in a run early over at the Lost Bridge Trail, did about 5 1/2 or six miles. Carol and Bob were there, Kay, Donna, Lucas, Kenny, Diane, Grandma B., even Dana and her little girl were in attendance briefly, as they were in town for the weekend. Joyce was supposed to be there but apparently forgot, even though she was bringing the deviled eggs. She was all apologies and invited us over for dinner the next night. Justin wasn't feeling well, having been fighting a bad cold for the last couple of weeks, and actually said he wanted to go lie down in the middle of the party and ended up napping in the bedroom for an hour and a half. Once he fully woke up he was ok, though.



So Monday night we made the pilgrimage to Pawnee and had dinner at Joyce and Don's house, where she insisted on serving beef and noodles, because "it was Jerry's favorite". As a kid I never liked beef and noodles, but as a grownup it's fine, but I wouldn't call it my favorite, and I don't recall Dad ever saying it was his, either. Brenda and her family were there for dinner, but then they were off to a ball game, and towards the end of the evening who should show up but David and his family, just back from a ball game. Played a couple of Poulenc tunes for them (mostly for Don), Joyce went through some her enormous postcard collection with the kids, and gave them each a framed caricature of themselves that she had done, which they were very smitten with and very possessive of. It was a good visit, even Beth was pleasantly surprised that it went so well. That afternoon we'd stopped in a Kay's house for another visit with Grandma, who seems to be doing pretty well for a "1911 model" as Dad would say, although she's about as thin as she could be and everyone has an opinion about what's wrong with her.



Tuesday night we had dinner at Red Lobster with Bob & Carol (now something of a tradition), and went back to their house afterwards for dessert, although we were so stuffed we waited as long as we could to eat it. Got some info on their trip last fall to Niagara Falls, and they're off next month on their postponed trip to Seattle to see Brian and his wife.



In between the family visits we went out to Roselawn and to Camp Butler to see where Uncle Pat is buried. Tried to find Old Cumberland cemetary, but between Mom and me we each only had half the right directions, and it wasn't until Bob put it straight that we were able to find it on Wednesday. We also stopped in at Mom's office that day to see the Judge, who's looking a little more wrinkly these days, but still seems the same otherwise, and he spent several minutes chatting with us. Paraded the kids through the clerk's office, too, although most of the old-timers that Mom knew the best aren't there any more. Beth made the rounds of Springfield's two scrapbook stores, one with Mom near her house and one out on the west side of town with all of us, although only Chloe went inside with her while Justin and I hung out next door at Taco Gringo. I did another run Wednesday morning around part of the lake, about four miles or so, exceedingly humid and pretty hot, but I figured good practice for the upcoming 8K that weekend.



Went through a fair amount of Grandma P.'s pictures and stuff looking for graphics for the diary web site, and found a few things that I brought back and want to scan. Probably won't get much done until after the Tour is over, though. Also took a lot of digital pictures, which I need to figure out how to transfer onto the computer and then I can upload those here, too. Plus Beth has a few rolls of film to develop, which will help illustrate the rest of the trip.