Crossing Illinois we came to the Embarrass River. AI says embarrass is French for obstruction or logjam. AI is mistaken. The French word for obstruction or logjam is embâcle. Every Francophile knows this. AI is too wealthy and soulless to be embarrassed. We moved through the Indiana floods. A magical mist spread over the Allegheny mountains.

Eschewing Old Hershey Highway, and bypassing the road to Donora, home to one of my three favorite baseball legends, we made it to our hideaway outside St. Michaels on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.