Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?

Breakfast at Cracker Barrel, of course, minus the grits and gravy.

The ill-fated fingerless glove.


 

It really was a good trip to North Carolina, a 16-hour drive, give or take, each way, with a stop on the way down with friends in NJ and a stop in Lancaster Co., PA, on the way back, as you've already heard.

The purpose of the trip was to attend the international convention of Alpha Delta Kappa, an international honorary organization for teachers and retired teachers. I'm halfway through my two-year term as Maine's state president of A∆K, so it was mandatory that I attend this conference. My friend Lynn serves as state historian, which means she has to chronicle my term and take photos when and where possible. Our husbands were kind enough to agree to drive us to Greensburg, NC, for this big event. (We owe them big-time for this.)

Lynn and I sat in the back seat down and back and knitted like women possessed. Occasionally we did a little back-seat driving, but we honestly tried to keep that to a minimum. SOMETIMES, however....

Anyway, we loved our visit to the South and agreed you just can't beat Southern hospitality. There's a kindness and a gentleness to Southerners that you find nowhere else. 

One late afternoon we drove out to McLeansville, NC, to Replacements, Ltd. Oh, my word. If you like china (and I LOVE china, and so does Lynn), this is the place for you. I came home with a new, totally unneeded cake plate, and Lynn found a butter dish to her everyday china.

Oh, and the convention itself? It was excellent. I'm really not the convention type, and it always takes me awhile to get into the spirit of an event like this, but the A∆K convention was first class. I enjoyed meeting so many members whose names I'd heard frequently. The next convention, in 2011, is in Chicago....There were 1800 members present, from all over the US plus Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Australia. Six of us attended from Maine.

Our hotel, despite its having the slowest elevators in the world, couldn't have been more hospitable. And the food? Oh, mercy.

NOW, for what went wrong:

1. I do wish I hadn't sat on a wasp or bee outside a restaurant in downtown Greensburg. That little bugger stung me something fierce on my buttocks, if you'll excuse my frankness. (No photo available. Sorry,) I promptly ran inside the restaurant and told the bartender my plight. He went into the kitchen and found someone who smokes, and that person generously gave up one of his no-doubt cherised cigarettes so I could apply tobacco to the sting. It helped.

2. When we left the hotel at 6:00 Sunday morning, why did I bolt out of there as if the place was being evacuated, leaving behind the following: my bag of make-up, my vitamins and two prescriptions, my hair wand, and various other necessities to daily life.

I didn't notice this until Sunday evening, in Lancaster, PA, when I was getting ready for bed. Ken searched the car, even empying out the trunk, but the items simply weren't with us. I phoned the hotel the next morning...and received my belongings via UPS yesterday.

3. How could I knit the second glove of a pair of fingerless gloves and screw up the pattern so badly? I finally admitted defeat, turned to Lynn as we rode in the backseat homeward and said "Watch this," then proceeded to ravel out the entire glove, which I'd been knitting for a good 5-6 hours. (See photo.)

But it was a good, safe trip from start to finish, and for that I'm grateful. The bee/wasp sting still reminds me it's there, though.