Road Trip!!

Like two ships passing briefly in the night, the family Panama Contingent (that is, Dana, Zia and Josh) will be returning home to The Lodge late Thursday night (actually about 3 am Friday morning), at a time when I will have embarked on a Road trip with our son Noah. He’s heading back to Baltimore, where he attends Johns Hopkins University. Noah has just had a month ‘off’ between semesters, although he has been working extremely long hours at his old company, ‘Animetrics’ (a facial recognition software company where he is an engineer) … sand he’s hardly had much of what could be considered a real “vacation”! The month he’s been home – 5 weeks actually -- have literally flown by like a tornado. We’ve enjoyed every minute with him.

While the Panama crew has been away, it’s just been Chris, Noah and myself holding down the fort here at The Lodge … and what fun we’ve had! We’ve been staying up till the wee hours cooking & eating great ethnic dishes, playing Bananagrams, working on our website, and having wonderful, deep discussions (such as one Noah posed last week: “Do you believe in pre-destination?” … that one kept us up half the night!!) Noah will be taking his own car back to school, so my driving down with him is not in any way ‘essential’. However, we have so much fun on these little road trips together, that I eagerly look forward to each one that works out. We always stop in at my moms in the Hudson Valley of New York for a visit and to break up the long drive, and its always great to see her.

It has been a great first semester at college for Noah, where he is majoring in Computer Science and Mathematics. His final grades were just posted a few days ago online, and he ended the semester with a perfect 4.0 average. (Not that I’m proud of him or anything!!). When I take a look at the Math he is studying, I get great fun out of telling people that I was his homeschool math teacher. It’s an inside joke because those who really know me understand that numbers and I definitely have a communication problem! (And that’s putting it ‘nicely’!). It was fortunate for Noah that he was brilliant to begin with, and that my smart math- and science- oriented husband was there to fill in the gaps of my blatant deficiencies! Anyway, my airline flight returns from Baltimore on Friday, and I’ll be back – hopefully refreshed -- in time to welcome home the world travelers from Panama, as well as to greet the weekend check-ins at The Lodge! Hope you’ll be one of them! The snow earlier this week has made for perfect skiing.

Cathi A. Belcher The "Lodge Lady"

Owner, Lodge at Jackson Village