Glad to have family time

So here's the short of it,
We made it to Springboro and are having a good visit. 

And here's the long

 Well, here we are in Springboro, Ohio, at a nice Hampton Inn.  We made good time with not too much driving unpleasantness.  We drove through some intermittent rain on the way.  On Jellico mountain we were behind an almost accident involving a truck and two cars.  Thankfully everyone seemed to be good drivers and drove themselves out of the situation.  I couldn't be sure who was at fault, but it was a very close call!  We planned to meet Aunt Frances in Lexington at the Cracker Barrel at exit 115.  By the time we were at about mile 111, it was raining so hard that I could hardly see anything.  The car in front of me did not have lights turned on and I was quite nervous about not being able to judge where it was.  Many cars were pulled off to the side of the road, so that's what I did too!  We sat for just a few minutes and it cleared enough to make our way the few miles to our exit.  Frances treated us to some blackberry cobbler and we had a short but very nice visit.  The rest of the drive to Cincinnati and on to Springboro was clear and easy.

As we checked in to the hotel where we are staying, we discovered that there is a reunion of the Ohio Purple Heart Veteran's Association meeting here this weekend.  There were two "older gentlemen" sitting outside on a bench and one of them had on a paratrooper hat and T-shirt.  We introduced ourselves, and shared that Dad had been in the 17th Airborne.  They were really nice.  It made me miss Dad.

As soon as we got settled in we drove over to Aunt Dot's and spent a lovely evening visiting and mostly watching, but a little helping get ready for tomorrow's big occasion.  Doris explained that everything is the "old timey" recipes.  There was already a carrot salad.  Jim had already chopped the onions; but there were potatoes to peel and chop, celery, boiled eggs, and cucumbers to chop.  Jim cut up six chickens and put his home-made barbecue rub on them to marinate for the night.  It seems that there will be a real Family Iron Chef Barbecue Cook-off tomorrow.  Chicken from Jim and we'll report tomorrow on what the other guys bring!   We got started talking about cooking and it seems that Mom and I may try to make a batch or two of Great Aunt Ruby's Pulled Cream Candy tomorrow.

There's a K-Mart here!  I've missed ours in Chattanooga since they turned it into a Sears, and then closed it down last year after the high water got into it.  I didn't really like it once it became a Sears anyway.  So on the way over tomorrow, we've promised ourselves a quick stop at the K-Mart.  We are going to pick up a spray bottle for Jim, he says when he's barbecuing meat, he likes to spray on an apple juice glaze at the very end.  That sounds really good!