On Friday, I took a half day off to go for a long run of fifteen miles, and still was able to get back home in time to shower and pack and pay bills before Mer and I headed off on our spring break vacation – a much-looked-forward-to vacation! We were ultimately headed to Alabama to see my sister, her husband, and her two children, but we did not want to make the twelve-plus-hour drive at once. Happily, Louisville in Kentucky is about five-and-a-half hours away from our home, and we have a good friend who lives there whom we had not visited in four years. So, Kentucky it was!

Normally, it is a five-and-a-half-hour drive from our house to Kentucky, but we hit several major rainstorms, and we stopped for supper at a Cracker Barrel, so it was closer to seven hours for us. Beverly, our friend, patiently waited for us, so we got to visit with her for a little over an hour before retiring to bed. We met Beverly six or seven years ago when she taught at CVCA for one year. She had moved to Northeast Ohio so her husband could get treatments for his cancer at the Cleveland Clinic. Sadly, the treatments did not work, and her husband passed away, so Beverly moved back to Kentucky and her family after just one year. In that year, Mer and I came to love her – she is a tough but caring teacher, with a way of being blunt without being rude. She is a masterful teacher and a great friend, and so we were happy to get to see her again. In fact, we had decided to spend Saturday with Beverly and not leave for Alabama until Sunday.

We woke up pretty late on Saturday, and Beverly made us a huge breakfast of bacon, biscuits, and eggs. Yum. We then discussed what to do for the day, and decided on a course of action. The most important thing was to be back at Beverly’s by 7:00 so she could see the occasion for a veritable Kentucky state holiday – the University of Louisville against the University of Kentucky playing basketball in the Final Four for the first time ever. Beverly is a huge Kentucky fan, which is good for her, since they ultimately won the national championship.

Anyway, we decided to see downtown Louisville, and then head over to Midway, a town that is home to a girls’ school that Beverly went to for high school. Beverly drove, which was fine with me; I discovered that my seat in her van reclined a long way back, so I snoozed on and off on the way to Louisville. I woke up fully close to the city, and we drove through several pretty neighborhoods before getting to downtown. Once downtown, we parked the car and headed to the river walk.

Louisville is located on the Ohio River, which is huge at that point of the river. The river walk is very scenic, with good views of the city, the river, and several bridges. There was a paddle-boat landing, but the boat that was moored there was not going out during the day, so we did not get a chance to go on board.

We wandered back into the city and checked out the major theater, in order to use the bathroom. It was interesting because the theater had a fair amount of modern sculpture in and around the grounds. I am a fan of sculpture, and so I enjoyed it.

We got back in the van, and I snoozed some on the hour-long trip to Midway. Midway is a small town with one main shopping street bisected by a railroad track. We continued on to Midway College, which used to be a college and high school for girls, but since then has become solely a college for girls. We wandered the grounds, which were completely empty for some reason that we were never able to ascertain. All of the buildings are made of red brick, which Mer and I like, and the grounds were covered with huge trees. It is a very pretty campus. We ended up on the far side of campus, where they have a small horse farm, and so we looked at the horses and petted a few. We crossed back over to the car, and went into town for a late lunch at a restaurant/bar that already had tables reserved for the game that night, even tough it was four hours off.

After lunch, we checked out an Irish import store, and chatted with the clerk, who had been on the phone wishing her father-in-law a happy ninetieth birthday. We concluded our wandering by going into a pleasantly cluttered local artists’ shop, where I managed to knock over a small painting leaning against a wall, but did not damage it.

The trip back was uneventful, and we made it home at around 6:00. Beverly had two other guests coming over, and they all went to the family room in the basement to get ready for the game. Mer went with them to grade, and I stayed on the main floor to blog. I also ran out and picked up a pizza order. To get some idea of how crazy this game was, Pizza Hut had a sixty-minute wait for pizza pick-up, and a ninety-minute wait for delivery. We had put our order in online, so I only waited a few minutes.

Although I saw very little of the game, it was amusing to hear Beverly’s commentary on how things were going. I finished blogging just as the game wrapped up, and Kentucky won, so everything worked out. I was not feeling very good, so I went to bed. My guess is I had been eating too much rich food for too many meals in a row. It was still a very good day, and I am thrilled we got to catch up with Beverly.

Last Thursday we got together with a bunch of our colleagues and went to Laser Quest in Akron to play laser tag. Laser tag is a game where you run around a foggy and dark maze shooting each other with lasers. I love this game. We had a total of fifteen people there, which was a little on the small side, but was still enough to make it feel festive and to make sure that you could actually find people in the maze.

We played a total of four games, and to my surprise, I did very well. Usually I start out very slowly and get better, but in the first game I came in second, behind LT, who grew up playing the game. Then, we played two team games, where the computer randomly assigns you a team, and I came in third and then first. That is the first time I have ever beaten LT! It was a good feeling. The last game was “normal” laser tag, where everyone is against everyone, and I came in second again. I’m not sure what I was doing differently from previous games, but I’m not going to argue.

I like the people with whom I work, and I am glad we had a chance to get together for a fun evening. Most (not all) of the people who came were mid-thirties and older; I guess it helps to be established in a career when you have to shell out $30 for an evening’s entertainment. This is the second time we have done the laser tag outing, and there are always people who come who surprise me and turn out to be a ton of fun. I’m hoping we can go again next spring (or maybe sooner!).