Girls Weekend Journal

Thursday, October 20, 2022 (written by Kathi) The end of Girls Weekend is always bittersweet. Lori and I have perhaps missed those we have left at home but have enjoyed being together so very much. We can never believe that it’s time to go home, but alas, today was the day. We were up by 7:00 to dress, pack, and strip our beds. Next we tackled the kitchen, cleaning up and packing up lunch and snacks for ourselves to have at the airport and on the plane. We made quick work of that and had an hour and a half to sit down, journal, and reflect on the great experiences we are always able to have on these trips. the approach to Chicago on Lori's flight At 10 am we loaded up and headed for the airport, stopping halfway there to fill the gas tank and wash and vacuum the car. We arrived at the airport in plenty of time, thank goodness, as the signage at the Philly airport absolutely sucks. For whatever reason we were not allowed to park in B terminal, from which both of our flights were lea...

Brandywine Creek State Park Wednesday, October 19, 2022 (Lori is writing today's entry!) The last full day of Girls Weekend 2022.  Always a bittersweet day.  Sad to see Girls Weekend come to an end, but also ready to get back home to our regular day to day lives and to our families. Mornings are nearly always the same on Girls Weekend. We get up and make our beds (every morning, we make our beds, no matter where we are), then sit down to our computers with a cup of coffee (sometimes tea) and check emails, social media and journal about our adventures.  We switch off the journaling, each of us doing every other day because we tend to be a bit wordy (you think?), and it takes quite a bit of time to gather our thoughts and to do a good job of describing our days. When planning today after returning from yesterday's adventure, we decided we were going to go big and do a hike in Brandywine Creek State park and visit the third DuPont mansion that is Wilmington, Nemours, so that...

Tuesday, October 18, 2022 (written by Kathi) Today we were up at 7:30 and spent the morning journaling and listening to music. Lori always brings her Alexa and we take turns asking for music genres. This morning the choices were Motown, 1960s music, 1980s R&B, and Cat Stevens. We clearly seek variety in our listening! Breakfast was yogurt, granola, and fruit—we ran out of eggs and it’s too late in the week to buy more because we won’t be able to eat them all before we leave. After a while we started the “ok, time to get ready” routine of showering, dressing, and making lunch. Megan, our new friend, arrived before noon and parked in our driveway. She joined us in our car, and we were off on today’s adventure. It’s Maryland day! At first we thought we would go to Baltimore for the day, but we decided not to deal with any traffic, and we knew we would spend hours and hours there. As we age, we have definitely had to acknowledge that spending a 10- or 12-hour day out and about constant...

Lori on the bank of the Brandywine River When we were mapping out our plan for our week here, we planned on today being a "rest" day. Partly because we just don't have the energy and stamina that we had in our younger years and partly because rain was in the forecast for today.  Instead, we opted to return to Hagley Museum because we felt that we missed so much there when we went on Friday, so that became the plan for the day. Ultimately, we were so glad we made that change in our plans because, while a bit cooler, it turned out to be a beautifully stunning day. We are often blessed with amazing weather while on these trips and today was no exception. The morning was spent catching up on e-mails as well as catching up with the rest of the world on our laptops.  After another round of cheesy scrambled eggs for breakfast, courtesy of Lori, we showered and got ready for our further exploration of the grounds of Hagley.  Kathi made the turkey and cheese sandwiches for lunch t...

Sunday, October 16, 2022 (written by Kathi) Warning: this is a long one, so grab a cup of coffee or something. The other day I told Lori I was going to work on not writing so extensively for the GW journal. Big fail. We were up and about a little earlier today, about 7:30, closer to our usual GW rising time. For breakfast we enjoyed yogurt and the delicious farmers market granola. This morning Lori and I were determined to leave the house earlier, so we were efficient about our morning routines. We had our lunches packed and were ready to leave in time to arrive at our chosen destination before noon. Today we explored another du Pont family home. Let me give you a bit of background first. Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (1739 – 1817) was a French-American writer, economist, publisher, and government official who emigrated with his two sons to the U.S. during the French Revolution. One of those sons, Éleuthère Irénée du Pont (a.k.a. E. I.) founded a company that eventually became one o...

Saturday, October 15, 2022 I have to add here a tribute to my Mom, Beverly Crawford, who passed away this year on July 15th.  She LOVED reading about our adventures on our Girls Weekend trips and would hound me almost daily to get our daily journaling posted.  I miss that.  I miss my Mom. I promise to continue journaling while on these trips, not only to document our adventures but in memory of Mom.  Love you forever. Today is the day we are making our trek into New Jersey.  Lori did her research to find something unique to do in New Jersey that wasn't too terribly far away from Wilmington and found Batsto Village, a nationally recognized historic site located in the Wharton State Forest in Southern New Jersey.  https://batstovillage.org/history/   Batsto Village is the site of a former bog iron and glass-making industrial center (1766-1867). A Mr. Charles Read built the Batsto Iron Works near the mouth of the Batsto River.  Originally the Iron wo...

Friday, October 14, 2022   Our first morning is always slow going. As 60-somethings, we savor these quiet, stress-free mornings of doing only what we want to do. We got up rather late for us, around 8:30 and took our assigned seats in the comfy living room (we always tend to choose “our” spots in our living quarters every year.) Lori launched a deep dive into what there was to do in and around Wilmington.   This is a banner year – not only is it our 25 th  anniversary, it is also our first, last, and only trip during which we plan to cover three states. Because of our strict rules about what constitutes being able to check a state off of our list, we usually do only one state at a time. Seven times we have explored two states, but to do that we either must find a border town from which we can easily explore neighboring states, or we have to pick up and move in the middle of our trip. We REALLY hate moving, and most times a good border town is hard to find. This year we ha...