David's Big Adventure in China

We’re back in Nanning after enjoying our summer travels in the states and ready to start the new school year tomorrow. We started our US visit in Jupiter, Florida with the 24th annual reunion of my former Coca-Cola colleagues. From there we went to Texas for a week and visited Dallas/Ft. Worth and Austin. It was Bonnie’s first trip to Texas and my first trip to Austin. During each trip to the states I make sure Bonnie gets to see parts of the US that she hasn’t seen before. We enjoyed seeing the sites in Texas, listening to live music in Austin and having dinner with two of my high school classmates who are married to each other (Phil and Leeann Hieger). After Texas we went to Indiana for some family time and attended my high school reunion which was a lot of fun.

We borrowed Dad’s car and drove to Rhode Island to start a New England tour. We spent time in Newport seeing the “cottages” of the gilded era and the International Tennis Hall of Fame. We drove out to Provincetown on Cape Cod, spent a few days in the Boston area including walking much of the Freedom Trail and hiking around Walden Pond, visited Salem and Rockport, and then headed up into Maine. We stopped in Portland, Maine on our way and visited with a former colleague from Dreyer’s (Michael Donahoe). We then headed on up towards Bar Harbor with a stop at Red’s Eats for their famous lobster rolls. They were good but not worth the almost 1 hour wait in line to get them. While in New England we enjoyed lobster bisque, lobster croissant, lobster rolls, and whole lobsters to ensure we got our fill of lobster. Of course, we enjoyed other seafood as well. While in Bar Harbor we spent time in Acadia National Park and did some great hikes there as well as enjoying the views of the coastline. One of the trails we hiked was called Precipice Trail and it was quite challenging with some metal ladders hammered into the sides of the mountain.

From Bar Harbor, we drove to Franconia, NH and did a hike at Franconia Notch before heading on to Plattsburgh, NY which is just south of the Canadian border. We then drove to Montreal where we stayed a few days with a former teacher/colleague of Bonnie’s. We took a tour bus to Quebec City and spent a couple days there enjoying the sites and food. It was my first time in Quebec and it felt more like being in France than being in Canada since French was the dominant language. After our time in Canada, we headed to New York City to watch the US Open tennis tournament. We spent all day the first two days of the tournament and half day of the third day watching many matches and seeing almost all of the top players. After we had our fill of tennis, we headed back to Indiana to spend a few more days before heading back home to China. All in all, we had a great trip that went according to plan and we enjoyed good weather almost the entire time.

It’s always good seeing friends and family, especially my parents and siblings. We got to visit again with my 100 year old grandmother and my 91 year old great uncle; fortunately they both still have sharp minds and can mostly take care of themselves. My great uncle still drives. We never know if our visit with them will be the last time we see them. Well that’s all for now, until next time……….

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