Here I go again, finally

I'm posting from the Country Inn & Suites in Syracuse.  Josh and I took a small divergence from our US 20 route to attend my grandson Ezra's Irish Dance competition at the NY State Fairgrounds on Sat Apr 27.   He's quite good, and this provides us our first opportunity to see him perform.  It's remarkable how the Lord orchestrated this opportunity.     The "pilgramage" is, and has been, the adventure we desire:  it's physically challenging,  emotionally gratifying, requires much more daily planning than we anticipated, necessitates great flexibility to adjust to "events" as we encounter them, -- and the delight of making acquaintance with myriads of most pleasant, cheerful and helpful people!!   And, oh yeah, the hills in MA and eastern NY are a force to be reckoned with.       Life lesson:  one can categorize people  into three groups,  1) strangers,  2) acquaintances,  and, 3) friends.  Generally, strangers encountered exhibit some reserve toward each other.  But we're finding that simply introducing ourselves (usually first name only) moves us from "stranger" to "acquaintance" with a noticeable lessening of reserve and opening up to much more relaxed interchanges.  We continue to be pleasantly surprised at the friendliness, enthusiasm, encouragement, willingness to share local knowledge/insights, and recommendations about our way forward.   Given opportunity, we could move from "acquaintances" to "friends" with many of them.   We count OVER a hundred acquaintances (by name) we've made since commencing in RI.  And we've encountered ONLY two who behaved "curmudgeonly".  (They may have just been having a bad day.) I find that borderline amazing to the positive.  The staff here at the Country Inn have been friendly and helpful, and have made us feel right at home.  It's been a good recovery day -- busy -- but, our bodies needed some restoration after 8 days of walking.  More later.    Jay/Rory