Greensboro – Day 3

Thursday, 19 May 2022

My day started a teeny bit earlier than yesterday. Instead of getting up at 7:30 I got up at 6:30. As usual, Stephen was ready with the coffee. Since it so early and the morning was cool (in the low 60’s) Jimmie and I headed out for a walk. The humidity was low and it was overcast so it was a very pleasant walk of around 1.8 miles.

We headed back home and had bagels for breakfast. They know my weakness for cream cheese with chives and always have it on hand for me.

After breakfast, it was time for our traditional making of the tea cakes. Over the years, I’ve given the recipe to most of my relatives and all of my friends (often with samples of the tea cakes) and everyone raves about them and yet no one seems to make them. The only time I make them at someone’s house is when I come to visit Jimmie and Stephen. Every time. Like clockwork. Stephen has become our official taster. Jimmie rolls the dough and cuts the cookies while I make the dough and place them on the cookie sheets.

After lunch, Jimmie and I did tai chi. Jimmie is a long time practitioner but I’ve never done it but have admired the grace of those who practice it. She logged onto a site and introduced me to tai chi with an instructor that was pretty laid back. It certainly is good for breathing exercise and Jimmie knew I wanted to work on my balance so she cued up a video for balance. I did OK but I found out I really do need to work on my balance. Strangely, I have better balance on my left side than my right side. Jimmie says the same for her. I think I’ll continue it when I get home.

Later in the afternoon I did another walk. A block from their house is a loop that is perfect. Every time I visit I try to make that walk at least once. This visit I made it twice.

While on the walk, I found some maple “seeds.” Technically, they are not seeds but are a winged fruit called a samara. Where Jimmie and I grew up, we would find the winged seeds of pine cones and throw them up in the air. The design of the seed at one end and the wing on the other makes them “helicopter” back to earth. It’s a pretty efficient means of seed dispersal.

She had been wanting some maple samara to show her granddaughters and as I walked on the sidewalk of the loop I found two pair of maple samaras.

I know it is confusing that pines have winged seeds and maples have winged fruit but for the most part, to young children, they are just helicopters and a load of fun.

Tomorrow I head for Jacksonville, Florida to spend the night en route home. I always thoroughly enjoy my visits to Greensboro and catching up with Stephen and Jimmie. They treat me too well but that’s how they are. Hopefully, before too long I will get a chance to spoil them a little in Fort Lauderdale.

The trip to Jacksonville will be a little over 7 hours. It’s just too long of a drive for an old man like me to make it in one day back to Fort Lauderdale. By the way, I found out why my GPS was routing me through strange back roads. I clicked on the options and found that during some trip I had clicked on the “closest” route, not the fastest. I checked my new routing to Jacksonville and it had me going mostly via interstate with a couple of short by roads to the next interstate. Maybe, just maybe, it will not steer me down any more dirt roads that lead to nowhere.

Stay tuned!