The day began with coffee in lieu of the free breakfast Marriott did not provide once I negotiated a tricky left exit into the Delaware welcome station, “Home of President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.”; left exits as political statement?  Surely not.  Traffic got heavier and faster, the traffic patterns more complex, the closer I got to the District, but I had my public radio pals (bless Rick Steves and Scott Simon) and the Google gal to calm and guide me—at least right up until the final turn onto my friend Chris’s street, when Google gal’s voice cut out.  Didn’t matter:  it was a safe arrival and a very warm welcome.  Chris proposed a walk in nearby Prince William Forest Park, 16,000 acres managed by the National Park Service in Triangle VA adjacent to Marine Corps Base Quantico, the largest protected natural area in the metropolitan District of Columbia region, and a “respite of quiet and calm” as advertised, especially welcome after a long, hairy drive.  Chris, retired UNH piano professor, had rehearsed (as performers do!) one of the many walks he has come to know since his move to Woodbridge, and indeed, it was restorative:  immersion in the humid, burgeoning spring green.  When we returned to his home from the park, Chris prepared a glorious antipasto platter for our dinner, and I made a call to Consumer Cellular, my carrier, about my phone’s voice dropping out; the Google assistant wasn’t talking to me when I asked her a question either, so it wasn’t just the gps function.  I’ve always had superior tech assistance from CC, expert, encouraging, and non-condescending to us seniors; the last time I’d called, the tech rep had congratulated me on correctly authenticating who I was by rattling off my identifying numbers:  “Flawless like a doll!” 

This time, however, I had trouble making clear to the rep what my problem was.  After several attempts to explain, I seemed to have succeeded, and was executing the various steps she recommended until, I suddenly realized, she must have thought I needed the phone to speak to me because I was blind, and had had me initiate the phone’s accessibility function.  Now I was in tech hell:  the phone no longer responded to my swiping or tapping buttons, but instead issued vocal orders I could not understand– “quick tap twice long hold”–in a severe voice that lacked the amiable, mellifluous tones of the Google gal.  I couldn’t back out of this mode.  Neither could the tech rep help me.  I couldn’t even turn the damn thing off.  The best the rep could do was make a next-day (Sunday, of course) appointment for me at a Target store miles away.  The phone kept talking at me; reversing the flip command to “put a sock in it,” I put it in a sock and tried to stave off panic.  At the start of my 2700-mile road trip, I now had a dysfunctional phone:  no gps, no email, no texts, no calling. 

Attempting to convince myself I could still certainly manage travel—as I had many times before—sans cell phone (I had maps!  Land lines still existed—in some places), I focused on enjoying the antipasto,

and, after dinner, Chris’s playing. Via You Tube, he introduced me to a gorgeous operatic soprano, Rosa Feola, performing at Wigmore Hall, and I even attempted to play the first of the Schumann Kinderszenen for him.  His piano has an action very different from David’s, impressing me with yet another issue professional touring pianists have to put up with.  I had only phone panic to contend with; sleep, Dear Reader, after the long day came easily.