Since escaping Madrid in March we have been in lockdown in Boston, living above the Post Office on Charles Street from March 21 until July 1 when we moved back into our own home on Beacon Street. In spite of being in lockdown we have stayed very busy as we are liquidating our entire estate in preparation for selling our home of 33 years and becoming truly homeless. We have given away everything but essentials to friends, family and goodwill. We had an initial offer on our home five days after listing of full price, cash, waive inspection and close in 30 days. After this deal fell through due to internal condominium conflict we took our unit off of the market but another buyer requested to see it again and has offered to buy our place accepting the internal conflict and even better taking all of our furniture making for a much easier move.
We have also been meeting many friends in our front yard, Boston Public Garden, for socially distanced picnics. We have spent more time in the Public Garden in the past five months than in the past 33 years. 
In addition to the above we have continued running every other day and have been touring our hometown on foot as we have every other city we visit. We have logged over 185 miles walking with our neighbor Peggy Scott. We should have continued our blogs but have been having problems editing our pictures. Jim finally fixed the editing problem allowing us to resume these blogs.
In preparation for a road trip to visit three of our five kids and six of nine grandkids Sandy elected to alter our usual packing methods and purchased packing cubes which she absolutely loves.
We spent two nights in Newport and planned on leaving at 8am on Thursday September 3 but we were both awake by 4am so we sneaked out at 6am without saying goodby.
Newport to Georgetown is about a seven hour drive but we stop every hour for about 10 minutes extending the time to eight hours. Jim is doing all of the driving and Sandy reads a book for both of our enjoyment. We started Where the Crawdads Sing, a 2018 novel by Delia Owens. It is about North Carolina which we feel is appropriate as that is our destination for this leg. We arrived in Georgetown about 3pm with plans to explore our surroundings but the real feel temperature was 99º which was too hot for us to walk around. We had an early dinner at Maitai, a Thai restaurant, where we shared a very delicious green Thai curry. Returned to our AirBnb and watched Designated Survivor, a Netflix series that we are really enjoying. Friday morning we are up early, planning on running but it was still too hot and humid. Jim did a 2 mile walkabout returning with coffee.
We left Georgetown just after 8am heading for Hillsborough North Carolina to visit our dear friend Lucy Duffy who we have known for over 20 years. Lucy lives in Brewster Massachusetts and we visited her there just two weeks ago. We spent one of the best weekends of our life with Lucy and her family in Saint-Parize-le-Châtel France in the summer of 2017. Lucy has been an inspiration to us ever since our first meeting. She ran her last of many marathons at the age of 69 in 2002. She then continued to compete in senior games and triathlons until the age of 85 and still continues to inspire us at the age of 87.
We had a pleasant drive from DC to North Carolina with Sandy continuing her reading. The time flies by while reading and Jim does not get sleepy or bored with the driving.
We arrived in Hillsborough right on time at 1pm and met Lucy at a Carolina BBQ joint next door to her apartment.
After lunch we drove around the small town of Hillsborough with Lucy and then stopped by to see her son Tim and his wife Denise at their non-profit studio Music Maker Relief Foundation. Their foundation was founded to preserve the musical traditions of the South by directly supporting the musicians who make it, ensuring their voices will not be silenced by poverty and time.
After our time with Lucy Jim drove an additional three hours while Sandy finished reading our first book which we both quite enjoyed. We met son Geoffrey and two of his three daughters, Freya and Gaorii at Sunny Point Cafe in West Asheville.
We arrived at our final destination about 9pm. We are staying with Bob and Gail MacAlpine who are away for the long weekend so we have their huge estate to ourselves.
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