"Make new friends but keep the old; those are silver, these are gold." -- Joseph Parry

Mary and Pat

We checked off New Jersey Weds. night, but more importantly we were able to visit with an old (not in age 🙂) friend, Mary LeBlanc.  We did miss seeing Dave and Christopher. I can't believe it's been 15 years since we've seen her! Seems like yesterday. It was great to catch up and reminisce. Mary and her family moved to Hannibal in the early 1990's? where she was Pat's boss. I was lucky enough to take care of their son Nicholas when he was a baby.

Christopher Schlink (the cute bunny) went trick-or-treating with us maybe the first year they were in Hannibal. Back in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle days.

Whenever I search for a picture I can't find, I am reminded that we need to get back to organizing our old pictures! I had a work picture of Pat and Mary before she moved to Hannibal. I can picture it, I remember scanning it, but where is it?

Besides adding New Jersey to the map of states we've stayed in, we also added Maryland, Rhode Island and Delaware. One more to go out East, West Virginia, and we'll be there this fall.  West Virginia will also take care of our last National Park in the East, New River Gorge NP.

This is Pat country. He loves lots of trees.

Do you notice anything different about the Mario Cuoma cable-stayed bridge? We found it interesting that the towers slanted out. This replaced the old Tappan Zee bridge. It is a 3 mile long, twin span bridge, crossing the Hudson River. 

This is supposed to be a picture of the Rhode Island sign as we entered the state. My phone camera malfunctioned I guess. I finally had to exit camera mode to reset it.

We are in the middle of nowhere. Am I sure? Yep, the diner near here is called the The Middle of Nowhere Diner.

Where are the Piepers now?  West Greenwich, RI