Garage Parties of the Pandemic

We ventured across the bridge again today to attend a birthday celebration for our middle grandchild, who turned eight today. The plan had been for a backyard party but the weather was not very co-operative. So we gathered in the garage instead, which is reasonably congenial now that it is kitted out with lighting and a fancy chicken coop. A barbecue wasn't in the cards, so they prepared the food inside and brought it out to us and the birthday girl opened her presents there while the rest of us looked on or played with the hens.

It's always great to see people and catch up a bit live and in person albeit at a Covidian distance! And I figure that years from now when the grandchildren are sorting through old photos, they'll be able to pinpoint the date they were taken by all the masks and other pandemic accoutrements!

The greater difficulty lay in getting home afterwards. There was a huge traffic tie-up on the Champlain Bridge and road blockades with police directing traffic. Instead of getting onto Island Park as usual, we had to detour along the Parkway, once we actually got there. Not sure if it had anything to do with the search for a drowning victim around Bate Island or something else. The weather didn't help, since by then there was hail pelting at the car windows. We were Two Going Absolutely Nowhere for a while!

But we made it home OK in the end. We'll see what the rest of August brings: there are still a few more family birthdays yet to come!