My sister and I are two years apart in age. We are closer to millenia apart in how we live and where we prefer to live. She left the area where we grew up about five years after college. She lived in the San Jose, CA area for ten years or so. Then, she lived in El Paso and Dallas before heading to Ontario, CA. Now, she lives in NJ. I have been the one who stayed on the east coast.

Anyway, now that she is only three hours away, you would think we would see each other occasionally. Not quite right. She is married to her job. She works a good 55 hour week on average and I am not the uptight workaholic. I am always going somewhere or taking the kids somewhere. The calendar fills up quickly.

She had to come up to the Wilkes-Barre, PA area for work Friday and will be there until late Monday. So I packed up the car – just with me and the 16 year old and a new shirt I got for my birthday on me for the first time- and headed south about 4:30 Saturday. Football was disappointing. Beth was in Wilkes-Barre. We were going to have dinner and talk a bit.

The trip down was beautiful. Some of the trees in the Endless Mountains have started changing. After the nip in the air this morning, my guess is a few more took that change to heart last night. The sun was out but it was not hot by that late in the afternoon. While there were lane closures, there were no workers and traffic moved right along. I took the camera with me but didn\’t stop and take any pics as it was not quite that pretty yet.

Dinner was uneventful. We ate at Bennigan\’s as Beth wanted to see the Rutgers game or what was left of it. She is also, despite having lived near San Francisco and LA, a Mets fan. She was very interested in the results of the Phillies game. We talked but did more watching during dinner than anything.

We went back to her hotel room and had a few sodas and watch a little of the USC-Washington game. We talked about what she is up to and what I have been doing, what the kids are doing, who is dating whom – typical sister fare.

All in all, a great fall road trip with the added bonus of seeing my younger sister.