I’ve been out and about this past week, so I haven’t had a chance to write. I visited with family, which is always nice. I started my travels by heading over to Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in Pikesville. They had a new drink, a Maple Ice blended, and I decided to give it a try. I’ve had maple flavored drinks and sweets before, and there tends to be an overly sweet tone at times. Not with this drink. It might be due to me having added an extra shot of espresso, but the flavors all blended well quite nicely. I planned on trying Sion’s bakery, but it was not open when I got there, so I will try it some other time.

During my drive North, I was able to see some really nice colors on the trees. All different shades of green, yellow, orange, and red, with some purple added in there for good measure. When I got to the Delaware Bridge, it was so foggy that I was not able to see the water. I could see the cars in front of me, which is much more important.

I visited the family for a few days, but also had one day where I went into New York City for a meeting. It was a productive meeting and will hopefully lead to some good things. The meeting was early, so I decided to try Essex Market for some breakfast. Since it was early, most of the vendors were not yet open. I did manage to visit Cafe D’Avignon and Porto Rico Importing Co., which were both pretty good. If I am able to go back and visit, I’ll try to get there closer to lunch time when all of the vendors should be open. There is a bottom floor that is apparently going to have another 30 vendors, so the place should be jam-packed if you get there at the wrong time (or the right time, if that is your preference).

Before I headed back home, I decided to stop at Magnolia Bakery in Penn Station. I got a brownie, which was delicious, as well as their specialty flavor of banana pudding, Pumpkin Gingersnap Banana Pudding. The flavor of the pudding was really good – much better than I expected. The pumpkin and gingersnap flavors worked well together, and they really enhanced the flavor of the bananas.

I was able to spend some quality time while on Long Island. I visited Broadway Mall, Roosevelt Field Mall, Friendly’s, Carvel, Nordstrom’s Ebar, and more. A lot of good meals were eaten. Too many good meals, but that’s a good thing. My mom and I worked together to make a birthday cake for my sister, who was visiting. So I was able to get some quality time with family.

During this visit, I was much more contemplative and reflective than usual. A lot of thoughts about the impact music had on me when I was younger, and thoughts of my Junior High School and High School years. Good and bad, but it was all good to think back on those times.

When it was time to drive back down to Maryland, the only concern was the weather. There was rain expected, with some heavy rains expected to hit around 10AM. I left a little before 9AM, hoping to be on the New Jersey Turnpike before the heavy rains hit. Unfortunately, the rain started getting heavy around 9:30, so I had a slow, careful drive. The rain was expected to stop in Maryland around 12PM, so I thought I would be arriving in Maryland right when the rain let up. I had some lunch at Earl of Sandwich (I got the original, since the holiday sandwich won’t be there until around Thanksgiving), and got something to drink at Peet’s Coffee. The rain was still coming down pretty hard, and didn’t let up until close to 1:30PM, which led to some major traffic delays. It was still fun to drive down and see the nice colors on the trees and to drive in the rain. Even if it was slower going, there wasn’t flooding and there weren’t any accidents along the way. As I got closer to home, there were some dark clouds, which I really enjoyed. Nothing like being on the road at 2:30 PM and having it be so dark it looks like it’s closer to 8PM.

This post isn’t as expressive as usual and no pictures in this one. I’ll try to post some more during the next few days about some of the thoughts and memories that I had while I was in New York. It’s good to be home, especially when you have a lot of places that you can call home.