The last morning we were in western PA, we woke to freshly fallen snow, and as I drank a cup of coffee and gazed out the windows at the sight before me, I couldn’t help but wish that I could stay. The week had been relaxing, fun, and energizing. I even said (out loud), “I could stay another day or two. After all, I don’t need to be back in the office for another three days.” Reluctantly, I got up and finished packing my suitcase. We drove to the airport in near silence. Everyone was rethinking all we had seen—the meals we had shared and the photos that we had taken with our hearts.

Later, at the Pittsburg airport, I watched a parade of snow plows race down a nearby runway and listened to the person next to me talk about the “major snow storm” that was bearing down on the part of the state where I had vacationed. “Maybe, it is best that I’m leaving,” I mused.

Then yesterday, I received an email from the friends that had journeyed with me around Lake Erie saying they had not been able to venture out of their home since I left due to the amount of snow that had fallen. “It is a good thing you came when you did and left, ” they said. “Otherwise, we would have been stuck.

“Stuck,”  I wondered . . . “Stuck in Vermilion or Fairport, or maybe some place overlooking the Allegheny River?” . . . .  No, I really don’t think we would have been stuck at all.