Summer Tour 2006 Stop 3 - Wall Township, NJ ... Back to Basics.

Daniel is a dream in the car. Thirteen hours after leaving Alpharetta we arrived at my dear friend Montse's home. The only incident we had was an unfortunate constipation emergency outside Frederick, Maryland.

Montse and I met in Willie Tyler's 7th grade math class and have been great friends ever since. She calls Daniel "her boyfriend", and her husband Sandy calls him, "Bubba" because we're "from a southern state". Montse's birthday is today, and we realized it's the first time we've spent a birthday together since my not-so-sweet 16. I could write pages on her, but this is Dan's blog so I shall refrain.

Yesterday we got together with my cousin Glenn, his wife Laura and their two boys - Jared & Tyler. I found out that Laura and I have the same type of birthday obsession. She did really cute baby food jars with labels and homemade lollypops for Tyler's 1st birthday. The boys had tons of fun playing together. It was nice of them to squeeze in a visit with only a day's notice - and after spending a full day at the zoo with the boys.

Today Daniel and I went for a drive down memory lane. We visited my first grade school which now houses the Board of Education and is a museum (no cracks from the peanut gallery). He ran around the blacktop which used to house the playground all the girls chased Brian Bisbee around, and sat in the dugout at Babe Ruth field. The picture with Daniel by that pipe thingy is cool because we used to straddle jump that during recess. It was the first time I ever remember conquering a fear. I was scared to jump it but did it anyway - then did it over and over again. The picture of the storage room is included because that was my first grade classroom. There's also a picture of a clever sign that for at least 35 years has been outside a church near my old house.

We also went by my old house, and went in search of our old beach club which is now a mansion on the water in Elberon.

Everything seemed so much smaller.