Home and away

Greetings from northwest Indiana.

This getting up early stuff has to stop. I rose a little after six a.m., hit the road by seven, and arrived at my destination five and a half hours later. A couple brief naps have revived me, but I have a feeling I'll conk out pretty good tonight.

I picked up my great-aunt on the way here. I was kind of surprised that she was willing to make the trip--about four hours from her home--since she doesn't venture far from the farm house where she's lived her whole life. This is probably the farthest she's been away from home in a couple decades, if not more. During the drive I asked her where she'd been out of state. Essentially, if the state doesn't touch Ohio, chances are she's never been there. My dad said that one of her brothers probably traveled no farther than one trip to Indianapolis and didn't go beyond adjacent counties much during his life. We hear a lot these days about eating locally and the like, but I wonder how many would be willing to confine their lives to, say, a fifty-mile radius now.

The drive was uneventful and not terribly interesting. (I suppose that's preferable to a nerve-rattling trip.) The most noteworthy thing may have been passing an alpaca farm, something that was unusual enough to catch my attention.

I left early this morning so one of my brothers and I could take my dad to an afternoon Notre Dame basketball game. My parents live relatively close to South Bend. For years I've seen games at the Edmund P. Joyce Center on TV and didn't think it looked very big, but I was surprised to find how small it is once I set foot inside. I can't believe it seats 11,418 for basketball.

We sat in the bleacher seats. Ordinarily you'd think they would provide a less than desirable view, but there isn't a bad seat in the fieldhouse because everyone is close to the court. I can only imagine what it would be like to see a good game here with the crowd in this basketball-mad state cheering at their loudest. The opponent we saw was San Francisco, a program with a proud tradition but not much relevance in today's college ball universe. Notre Dame should have wiped the floor with them but got sloppy after building a big early lead. The final score was closer than the game was.

In knitting news, I am going to claim early success with casting on for another hat. The cable has not separated from the join. The brother it is for drove the hour-plus back to his place to see if a package arrived, so I may be able to work on it openly and not have him see his gift take shape. I have the soon-to-be crowded basement to myself, at least for one night. Tired as I am, it's a good start to being home for the holidays.