Wednesday's Words for August 3, 2011

It’s summer and we’re on vacation again, taking two weeks off to kick back and recharge our batteries.

Our first stop last week, was, as it has been these few years, the north-eastern Pennsylvania city of Hazleton. We have friends who live there, and each year we take a few days to visit them. My beloved also likes to go on excursions, feeding the history buff within. This year on our schedule was a return to Steam Town, USA, the railroad museum in nearby Scranton, Pennsylvania, and a first time visit to the coal-mining town of Ashland.

As well as museums, my husband enjoys exploring historical sites. The first time we came to visit the area, he took the Lackawanna Mine tour. He liked going deep underground for the duration of the guided tour, which lasted over a half an hour.

During that first trip, I of course stayed on top of the grass. As I have done during every mine tour since.

The day after the return to Steam Town, we went to the small town of Ashland. There my husband and our friend toured the mine. While they explored, I stayed in the shade in the park there and read. A perfect outing for us both.

One thing both my beloved and I agree upon is that our marriage has lasted 39 years (as of this past July 14th) mainly because we allow each other to pursue different interests.

After Hazleton, we took two days in Philadelphia. We’d explored the city once before, but one thing David didn’t get to do that last time was visit the New Jersey, an Iowa Class Battleship that has been decommissioned and is moored at the waterfront of Camden, New Jersey.

While I stayed back in our comfy room on Friday David did just that. The tour he took was led by two World War 2 veterans, whose knowledge and experience awed their audience. My DH thoroughly enjoyed himself.

Most of our second week – this week – we are spending on the Jersey shore, in a place called Wildwood Crest. We’ve never been here before, but count ourselves lucky to have discovered it, and this very comfortable beachfront motor inn. We have a two room efficiency unit, which suits us to a T. We brought our Keurig with us, of course. One definition of heaven for us both is an ocean view and a freshly brewed cup of coffee.

We’ve already decided that the next time we come here, we won’t travel from Philadelphia on a Saturday. What should have been a two hour trip lasted nearly six, due to several instances of gridlock along the way. But we arrived safe and sound in the end. Within the hour we’d changed into our swim suits, and taken a dip in the pool.

After dinner that first day, around sunset, my beloved set off to have his first walk along the beach.

And showed up sometime later, dripping wet. Tee shirt, shorts, everything, soaked through because, in his words, “I wasn’t going to go in, but then I simply couldn’t resist.”

I shook my head, because that’s what he expected me to do. But what I actually thought was how cool it was for a man kicking at the gate of 60 to be able to enjoy the moment enough that he could give in to the temptation to wade into the ocean, despite not being dressed for it.

His sense of adventure and his thirst for knowledge are two of his most attractive traits.

Love,
Morgan
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
http://wednesdayswordsbymorgan.blogspot.com/