Daily Archives: September 21, 2009
When in Rome…
Today we planned to to drive the 15 miles over to Rome, NY to see if we can find where Jan lived when she was here in 1961-1962 when her father was stationed at Griffiss AFB.
But before we could get of the park however, we got to talking with the couples parked next door to us. They’re from Wisconsin and were heading to Niagara Falls a few days before we will be there. Joni and Jan both collect moose stuff and had to compare collections.
And Mister had a great time exploring the inside of their rig.
We all had such a good time talking, we were both late hitting the road, so it was about noon before we finally headed out.
After stopping at Wendy’s for lunch, we drove over to where the Air Base used to be. The base closed in 1993, but parts of it have been redeveloped over the years.
It took a while, driving around while Jan tried to get her bearings, but we finally found Jan’s Junior High. Apparently now it’s an Upper Elementary School, which means it is 5 & 6 grades only.
It still looks pretty good.
Rome School 1
Rome School 2
And then after a couple of false starts, we found Jan’s old house, somewhat the worse for wear!
Actually a lot the worse for wear.
Rome House 1
Rome House 2
A developer had bought the housing in 2005, apparently hoping to refurb and sell them. Don’t know if it was the economy or what, but it looks like that fell thru. Only a few units out of hundreds have been redone. And only one seems to be occupied.
But it shows what the places looked like when Jan lived here.
Rome House 3
Rome House 4
It was a kind of bittersweet time for Jan.
After driving around some more we stopped off at Walmart for a few things. While browsing in the Sporting Goods section, I noticed they finally had some ammo in stock, specifically 9mm and .25 Auto.
No .380 unfortunately. But it didn’t make any difference. I was going to buy several boxes of each, but found out they couldn’t sell it to me.
It seems that in New York you must have a permit to just OWN a handgun, not to conceal carry one. And without a permit you can’t even BUY handgun ammo in New York state.
Oh well.
After Walmart Jan got a pedicure and then we headed over to Sylvan Beach to Eddie’s, a restaurant we’d seen the night before. We both had the spaghetti and meatballs. Good stuff.
Then it was home and in for the night.
Tomorrow we’re going to make a 400 mile round trip in our toad down to South Hadley, MA to visit our friend Joannie, pick up our guns that we had left in her care while we were in Canada, and also mail we had sent to her while we were on the road.
More tomorrow…
