Out of the country at last

She sang "Summertime" for us, even though we missed her first rendition of it, since we told her we'd driven 12 hours to hear her do it.  Then, when she learned we were newly engaged and heading around the world, she dedicated a performance of "At Last" to us.  It was very sweet, as we're big fans, and this was the first time Patty had heard her live.

We stayed the weekend with my college friend Casey and his wife Emily, and also visiting with Lance, Jenny, and their new son Douglas.  Lance has traveled pretty extensively, and he had lots of good advice.

From St. Louis, we drove up to Chicago, where we stayed with my college buddy Joe, who's a physics post-doc at Northwestern.  By an odd coincidence, he was also in St. Louis when we were, so we'd had dinner with him and his new wife Tara.  In Chicago, we visited some freezing beaches and the Navy Pier (we had it pretty much to ourselves).  And, we visited with another college friend, Karen, and her husband Dennis and new baby James.

From Chicago, we went to Michigan, where we finally visited with friends of Patty's :)

They had a new baby, too.

Next night was Patty's Uncle "Flash" Jerry.  We had a great time hanging out in his Port Sanilac bungalow and looking at old photos of Patty.

Next morning, we drove to Niagara Falls.  I've got pictures, but I haven't uploaded them yet.  It was off-season and freezing, but parking was a breeze, and the falls are no less beautiful!

After driving across to Buffalo, we had dinner at (where else?) the original home of buffalo wings!

The next day, we drove into NYC, visited with family, had an amazing dinner at Union Square Cafe, rushed to take care of a lot of last minute stuff, and caught a flight to Buenos Aires!

We've just been getting acclimated so far, and trying to decide how to spend 5 weeks in Argentina.  It seemed like a lot, but we're discovering just how big this country is!

More news soon, but I gotta let someone else use the computer now :)

Cheers!