Jill's Story

Friday Sondra and I drove to Hagerstown, go to the hotel and immediately started meeting and greeting old and new friends. Sondra was with me at TTP 3 years ago. That night a group of about 17 went to Chic's for Maryland crabs. Really fun but a heck of a lot of work for very little meat . (I am a lobster eater :) ). And those spiced crabs fired up your lips for a long time. Later we hung around the bar just enjoyed being with everyone. Ask Sondra about the chocolate martini :) Went to the hospitality suite for karaoke--some of us can really sing. (Like Tonya, Allie, Suz)

One thing I liked a lot was seeing various 'groups' intermingle. Great food in the hospitality suite. Dee's fudge, NancyD's cookies. And I met Robin D. Owens :) Becky and Julia and Aleena arrived . It was so good to see Becky again and meet our Julia. Darla came in late and looking frazzled--no wonder, Moby is beached :( . Driving to TTP seemed to be dangerous, at least for Darla and Sara. And challenging - -for Ang and Neta.

Friday night was a late night--seemed nobody wanted to say goodnight.

Saturday we drove to Boonsboro to be there early to get tickets, got group B. Ate lunch at Asaro's and then dithered about going to Barnwood with Pam etc. Didn't go, just hung around the porch. Nora got there early and went outside and immediately had to pose for about a hundred cameras. The woman is soooooo patient. And everyone oh's & ah's over Kayla who is a little well bahaved princess. I bought books (imagine that ). 3or 4 from Rebecca York/Ruth Glick, had a very quick chat with her dh. Just 2 from Robin-I think. One Nora. Got pics of us with Nora. got 3 Nero Blancs. Interesting thing happened when we went back to the car. This girl asked us where we got the 'I'd rather be reading a Nora Roberts book' magnet on my car (I made it from one of the bumper stickers). Turns out this girl is 40, a triplet and Nora's mailperson. She babysat for Elly (seems strange to hear Nora called that ) when the boys were young. When Nora wrote The Last Honest Woman she called Kerri to find out what it was like to be a triplet and she dedicated the book to the 3 Knight triplets. Kerri also told us some stuff about Ronald :( . Hung around for a little while and then Sondra and I went to Antietam where we were attacked by swarms of ferocious gnats. The battlefield is a drive through thing and we avoided getting out of the car--much to Wendy's amusement when we told her about it :)

Back at the hotel we just hung around the hospitality suite & snacked. I spent a long time visiting with Robin Owens .Sondra crashed and Sara and I met Carol for a drink in the bar. Then I crashed too. Too bad- I think I missed a lot of good stuff.

Sunday was brunch day. I sat with Sondra, Sherrieberry, Dee, Carol, Allie. We were the last table--Stacie took pity on us and got us pizza. Asaro's has excellent pizza! The highlight of the day was the baskets. I won the Silhouette one. Nora's first 100 Silhouette's, champagne, 4 beautiful flutes, snickers all in a box/crate that Tonya's Dad had made. This is something that I will treasure forever. Sondra won a basket too--shocked the heck out of her I was so pleased that Nancy won our basket--woo hoo. And that Sara choose the Wreck Room basket-we worked really hard on that one. Nora was again patiently posting for pics--except that the JD Robbers had theirs taken without me ! :( Maybe someone can digitalize me in ? I did not get to spend time with everyone I would have liked to. That was frustrating for me.

We reluctantly left Boonsboro. Goodbye's are hell. We spent Sunday night in Charlottesville (after driving all the way with the gas lid flapping in the breeze-on a new cadillac :( . When we stopped for gas ole retired machanic Bill was going use a matchbox to keep the lid closed--after serious thought he decided this was not a good idea so he just tore the matches out and I used the cover to hold the lid shut. We stayed on the Charlottesville square downtown--neat place. Monday am we went to Montecello. When Sondra and I take off on trips we like to see & do stuff along the way.

We left VA and when we got as far as Barboursville W VA we hit gridlock. Got off to get gas and spent 2 hours from the time we got off, got gas, went to Toys R Us--all of maybe 1/4 mile. In the store we found out that the interstate (64) and adjoining road were closed until midnight because of an accident (some of you may have seen this on the news, 2 people were killed). Went to Comfort Inn and got the last room in town. Becky , if you read this your candle came in handy, the room smelled like wet carpet.

Tuesday we drove to Cynthiana, KY. Picked up Pat and headed home. Got home at 11pm after driving 15 hours.

Wednesday I went back to KC (2 hours one way) to see the Thoroughly Modern Millie tour debut. Sondra did not go :)

We put close to 3,000 miles on the car. Just because some friendships are cyber based does not mean they are not real. IMHO anyway. Listened to 3 books--I now have Sondra hooked on books on tape.

Sorry this is so long.....Hugs to all