Northern Exposure III - 2011 - Preamble

Similarly to last year the exact timing was dictated by the American Cancer Society's Relay For Life Midwest Division Annual Conference. However the difference was that it was to be held in Fort Wayne, Indiana, which meant Marissa could attend while leaving John & Zoe in Columbus. The plan was for her to join the van-load of attendees from Evansville and around as they passed through Edinburgh/Taylorsville heading north on I-65 on the Thursday, attend the conference and be dropped off at the same place on Saturday evening. Sunday would be dedicated to final preparations - shopping, packing, and packing up the van ready for an early start on the Monday. This year we recognized differences in lifestyle and planned accordingly. Maria had always preferred to travel with lavish amounts of food and drink iced down in multiple coolers as well as boxes and baskets and rarely straying from the van in which we picnicked. With Zoe (and our) bladder limitations we found we frequently strayed from the van and bought such meals as we needed where and when we needed them - which resulted in a lot of wasteful discarding of previously prepared food. This year, aside from an assortment of room temperature snacks and small emergency amounts of room temperature drinks we will haul no food substituting extra amounts of cash. An empty cooler will accompany us so that suitable cool & dairy supplies can be transported safely the final few miles on the day we move into the cabin we will occupy for a week. All preparations went smoothly and by the middle of Sunday everything not needed overnight was packed in the van, despite intermittent rain all day, requiring a lot of vehicle moving to have the van backwards in the center of the garage. After a relaxing afternoon Michelle, Don & Ziggy came over for a puppy play-date and general socialization. They went and got some delicious Indian food to treat us all and even later we all went out to be treated to ice cream. Sometime after they eventually left a big thunderstormy weather system started to pass over and lasted for a good part of the night.