We're in Pennsylvania. We planned to return to Huntsville last Tuesday, but I postponed the trip a couple of days to allow the bad weather to move through the south. I thought we would be able to travel on Friday without running into rain. Well, if you don't live under a rock, you know what happened in Alabama three days ago. I called our neighbor Thursday evening to see if we had any tornado damage. No damage, but she told us to stay where we were because most of north Alabama has no electricity. So we're still in Pennsylvania.

I checked the Huntsville Utilities web site yesterday morning. They're hoping to have power in most of Huntsville by Monday evening! Five days without electricity. But no matter. Our losses pale to insignificance compared to others in Alabama and around the Southeast.

I think the additional time here has benefited Nancy's mother. She has been suffering from pain in her lower back for some time. It took 10 days to adjust her medication to the point where the pain was reasonably controlled while she could stay awake.

We are staying with Nancy's aunt. She's taken it pretty well each time we told her we planned to stay just a little longer. Right now we plan to leave on Monday to arrive back in Alabama on Tuesday.

We are going to miss John Michael's sixth birthday, which is tomorrow. I'll have more to say about that next week. But in the meantime, Happy Birthday JM...Cha Cha Cha! We missed a phone call yesterday from Lynn and Gail in Arizona asking how we're doing. I don't have their number with us, so I hope they check in with this site.

By now you have to be asking about the picture. Nancy's aunt lives in Cresson; her mother is in an assisted living facility in Hollidaysburg. We normally take what amounts to an interstate to travel between the towns. It turns out that the old route is more direct. Yes, we have to drive up and down the steepest hill around and drive through 2 small towns, but it is more direct, and that counts. It turns out that along the way we pass a store that apparently sells, among many other antiques, these iron statues. Yesterday we stopped, in the rain, and I took this picture. Why not? Wouldn't that look great in our front yard?