"Dayton is actually a pretty big city. It spans 2 exits."

That's what the Waffle House waitress told me - in all seriousness - when I was asking her which side of Dayton I was on. Then again I was asking her at 11:15pm, so maybe she was tired. She was also new, apparently. And here's a quirk about Waffles Houses: they make grits the standard side dish for their omellettes; yet you can't get gravy on your hasbrowns. (And I suppose I'm going to have to clarify, since I have a bunch of yankees that read this blog, ^_~ , when I say gravy I'm talking about white, thick, creamy, sausage gravy, or country gravy, as in biscuits and gravy gravy.) I made a light comment about it to one of the servers, and she smiled and said "Yeah we have a lot of people ask that." I mean if they're southern enough to serve grits, then you'd think they'd serve biscuits and gravy. Ah well. Not in Ohio, apparently.

So the drive home was hot, and long, and my car was, as Tom described, comically packed full. I didn't make as good of progress the first day as I wanted to; I was hoping to make Philly to Indianapolis if 9 hours. No such like. So I got a Super 8 for the night, which was at least clean (although it took me a bit to locate the extra TP roll, which was *very* irksome, but in fairness it was in plain view - just on a rack a fair bit above my eyesight.) And they used a regular sheet instead of a fitted sheet on my bed, and the threadcount on the sheets must have been as low as it is possible to get, because they were a bit like sandpaper. But it did have Nick at Nite so I got to watch Fresh Prince of Bel Air reruns, and it had a pool which opened at 6:30am, so I got up at 9 and took a dip in the pool before showering, heading to Mass, and getting back on the road at noon. So not so bad.

The final days in NYC were quite pleasant; I went to see the Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, a life-long dream (although Les Mis is my all-time favorite) and I had a pleasant final few days at work; one of the associates - he's actually a temp - gave Melissa and I hugs good-bye before he went on vacation and said he was going to miss us, which made us feel very good. It would have been wierd if John, the other male associate, had done that, but Oba never felt like our boss, just like a bud, so it was cool. And the two female associates took us out to lunch, which was enjoyable. And my housemate and I were both packing up Wednesday and Thursday, because she's moving in two weeks, so that was also amusing. Plus I got seven or eight bottles of nail polish from her. She had tons, but never wears it anymore, and was going to throw them away if I didn't want them. I rarely wear the stuff, but she had some excellent colors, so it was too much to resist.

And then visiting with Tom and Katie on Friday night, which was fun; Tom and I had a five hour conversation, waning into the wee hours of the morning. There's only one other person that I can have those type of conversations with, a friend from home, and I don't talk to her very often, so it was sort of balm to the mind for me.

And now I'm home, home home. And the car has been unloaded and the stuff crammed into my room for five weeks.