Life does not go as expected. I thought I would be almost home by now but Bob and I are in Knoxville waiting for repairs on our wonderful old Toyota Avalon, which suddenly started firing on only three cillinders yesterday. We can't complain - well over 200,000 miles on this car, which has taken us so many marvelous places so comfortably with very little repair cost. I never thought I could love a car - just transportation - but this one has been so comfortable and reliable, really a special car and has been the means of getting so Yellowstone and back and forth so many times to Corpus, to visits to Blacksburg, to Big Bend and Arizona, the Grand Canyon and the Giand Saguaros, the giant sequoias too, the blue whales in the Monterry Bay and the sand hill cranes rising with the morning. Thank you car.

I'm probably - almost for sure - going to have to change my work day tomorrow, which is kind of a pain. I hate to disappoint people who are counting on seeing me - but here I am in Tennessee and I can't teleport and getting an airplane at this late date seems daunting and expensive and I don't want to send Bob on alone with a car whose repairs might not hold - or even to deal with trying to find the airport and get tickets.

I've actually enjoyed the delay except that I feel guilty - time to get LOTS of sleep and play Scrabble and start to catch up on blogs. Bob Trounced me last night on SCrabble, getting a seven letter word "dragnet" very late in the game. That man is incredible. (In so many ways)