VALENTINE'S MEDICAL REPORT

I'm interrupting this travelogue to bring you a medical alert.

Here's the history...
2008 @ Valentine's Day, Gene had a triple bypass. Everything went well.
2009 @ Valentine's time, he needed more surgery to repair his sternum which had failed to heal correctly.
2010 @ Valentine's time he must have had something else to do.
2011 @ Valentines's Day he had a chest pain and off to the emergency room he went. The blood tests showed that there had not been a heart attack. He had the full routine, many EKGs, a stress test, an echo-cardiogram, and an angiogram. Nothing tragic was found. After many conferences with and among his doctors, it was decided to change his meds.

Gene is home again after a two night stay at Northwestern Memorial. He is feeling fine and thanks everyone for their kind thoughts. I wonder what he has planned for next Valentine's Day.

Now back to our regularly scheduled program...

Road Trip - January, 2011

Once again, we took a road trip to join Gene’s high school reunion in Palm Beach.

When we left Chicago, the temperature was in the 20s, there was snow on the ground and a cold wave was on the way. I had no regrets leaving.

An uneventful drive brought us to our first stop in Columbus, Indiana. It is an interesting city, a Mecca of inventive architecture and design. Even the bridge at the highway exit is well designed.

There was still some snow, mostly the remains of clearing streets and parking lots.

The next day we crossed the Ohio river and went through a piece of Kentucky and into Tennessee and stopped in Normandy, TN, near Tullahoma, at the George Dickel distillery. The memory of their wonderful whisky brought us back to their company store. If you are ever able to taste their wares, do so. I’m sure that you will enjoy the smoooooth quality of their golden nectar.

When you are in Georgia and it is not peach season, you have to indulge in pecan treats. That brought us back to Ellis Bros. Pecans in Vienna GA. Their address was in our GPS from the last time we drove to Florida, for a very good reason. Their many variations on pecans are wonderful. Roasted and salted, praline crunch, coffee coated, spiced, pralines, chocolate (light or dark), you get the idea. You can even get them plain, just in the shell.

TO BE CONTINUED and PHOTOS ADDED