And By the Way ....

Today is my father's 95th birthday.

What Will I Miss About Rochester?

If you'd asked me, or Hal, to make a list of the things we'd miss about Philadelphia when we left last year, we'd have run out of space on the Internet. Rochester is much easier to treat in this way. What makes the cut?

• Roscoe's Root Beer & Ribs: very nice barbecue, thank you.
• Counterpoint Home: Located in the downtown mall, this was our mainstay for Old City-like shopping (beautiful modern goods with prices to match) combined with the largest stash of Marimekko items and fabric in one place I'd ever seen.
• Minneapolis and St. Paul: Awesome cities, perfect for an urban fix, even in winter. Only wish they'd been a little closer.
• The bluffs of the Mississippi: truly majestic. When driving here from eastbound points, you see hours and hours of farmland and then a spectacular view of the river and the valley it created. And then ... farmland again.
• Knowing the people who raise the vegetables, meat and poultry we ate. We didn't know all of them, or know them well, but it's nice to buy whole chickens from the people who raised them.
• Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport. It's a little funny to understand when you first get there, but if you use it regularly, especially to fly Northwest, it makes brilliant sense in a few ways. It's also far nicer than the Greyhound Station-like feel of parts of PHL.
• Our DirecTV, especially for NFL Sunday Game Ticket and MLB Extra Innings. We are moving back to Comcast country.
• Avocado's. There are other restaurants we'll miss, but Avocado's had interesting food (I would call it Caribbean fusion?), outdoor seating, and an atmosphere that might pass for parts of Philadelphia, if you squinted just so.

So Goodbye To All That ...

Oh yeah, remember us? I know, it's been awhile -- another 25+ plane rides for me (forgive me for not tallying just yet), four months of winter for Hal and well, a lot of looking ahead to Chicagoland.

Many pictures of move-out and move-in promised soon. And then, possibly a new name for the blog to capture the magic of Second City and the awesomeness of our new hometown, the People's Republic of Oak Park (kidding!), and the saga of piecing together financing for an actual house.