Nottoway Garden: Tom's departure

On Tuesday night, Frank, Monica and Colleen joined Tom, Ed and myself for a farewell dinner at La Dolce Vita in Fairfax. It was fun seeing everyone although sad to have to watch Tom and Colleen say goodbye. In retrospect, it would have been better to have scheduled the dinner for Monday night. Live and learn.

Farewell dinner at La Dolce Vita

The next morning, we left bright and early at 7am for Indiana and rolled into Bloomington about 6:30 pm. We had few stops only for gas and lunch. The drive wasn't too bad except for the PA turnpike. What a horrible road. We did run into some rush hour traffic as we approached Indianapolis. Bloomington is a cute town. We washed up and headed into town for dinner. There is a town square with lots of restaurants surrounding the courthouse. We ate at Grazie on their outside patio in the front of the restaurant. The wild mushroom ravioli was excellent.

After dinner, we walked around a little but it felt cold and we didn't go very far. The downtown is a few blocks from campus. We estimated that the downtown is about 5 blocks by 5 blocks and has lots of little shops and restaurants.
The campus is beautiful- most of the buildings are Indiana limestone and there are beautiful wooded areas, streams and brick paths thru out campus. Lots of begonias and brightly colored flowers all over campus.

Tom's new apartment- living room

On Thursday, we were up and out early to pick up a Budget truck and drive to pick up Tom's "stuff" in Columbus, IN where the U-pack depot is located. We were back in Bloomington by 11am and had a late 2nd breakfast or early lunch at the Runcible Spoon as we waited for the rental office to open at noon. We unloaded the truck and the Subaru with a minimum of hassle. The apartment is in the middle of the first floor which required some walking but no stairs.

After getting everything unloaded, Tom and Ed took the truck back to Budget as I put stuff away in the bathroom and kitchen. I meandered over to the Kroger and picked up a few things. By the time Ed and Tom returned, we all decided to call it quits and for a while. After a nap and some rest time, we picked up Tom at the apartment and went to an middle Eastern restaurant (Turkish?) and had a delicious dinner in an outside patio that was very inviting- lots of vines and white lights draped over arbors. After a quick trip to a Bed Bath and Beyond for some "stuff", we dropped Tom off at his apartment.

Friday morning, Ed and I packed up our gear and went over to Tom's place and helped move some recycling stuff and were finished by 11 am. We left for home having decided to drive until we stopped. We ended up in Washington PA. Good to be home on Saturday.