Patient Saver and I "met" on this blog back in 2006, the year we both started our blogs.  We connected here due to similar attitudes, similar ages, similar things happening in our work lives (layoffs and transitions).

The first time we met in person was in 2011, when I was driving home from a relative's wedding in Massachusetts.  We met at a highway rest stop, had lunch, and took a walk where she showed me some of her town.

There have been a few visits over the years--I think I've stayed over at her house once, maybe twice, and we found a town about half way in between us and have met there several times (most years but not every year).

The past several years, both of us had elderly cats with medical conditions, so that meant that our visits were daytrips centered around sharing lunch and a walk.

But when I read that PS had lost her beautiful Luther, I thought that the time might be ripe for her to visit me, and she agreed.

This week worked well with my work schedule since the people who I work for were otherwise occupied this week and I had no client meetings to prepare for.

Unfortunately I could not fully play hostess as my home is currently too cluttered (bad me).  I usually have an annual visitor over the summer and get the house cleaned up for her, but that visit did not occur this year.  I knew that, with the scheduling, I wouldn't be able to clean up entirely, but I did get the downstairs and bathroom presentable.  We split the cost of her stay, with her covering one night and me another.

PS arrived on Wednesday.  I took a long lunch break and took her to lunch, then drove her to my office and set her loose on downtown Historical Bethlehem with a map and guidebook.  I scheduled dinner at the historic Hotel Bethlehem (winner of the best historic hotel in the United States four years in a row) in their gorgeous 

dining room.  Unfortunately the history museums were closed, so PS mostly saw the outside of buildings, but we did get to stop inside the Sun Inn Tavern (George Washington really DID sleep there)  

I was able to take Thursday and Friday off work.  Bethlehem has distinctive north and south sides (they were once separate cities).  Since we had focused on north Bethlehem for the first day, on Thursday, we started off with South Side Bethlehem, first at the Banana Factory, which has art galleries and classes and artist's workshops, then driving over to SteelStax, where the old blast furnaces of Bethlehem Steel play backdrop to a new (decade-old) performing arts center and the Visitor Center for South Bethlehem.  We visited the National Museum of Industrial History (affiliated with the Smithsonian) and walked the Hoover Mason Trestle, which is a half-mile elevated walkway along the side of the furnaces.  After stopping for lunch at a Korean restaurant over in Easton, we took the mule-powered canal boat ride on the Lehigh Canal, giving us a full view of how the canal and steel industries paved the way for the takeover of the railroad industry.  You certainly see industrial history in this area, from the nation's first city pumping system from the 1760s to the Ben Franklin Technology Partners, which brings together science and engineering expertise from Lehigh Univesity and Lafayette College with business expertise from those same colleges' business programs and local venture capitalists.

After PS checked in to her AirBnB and we each had a short rest, we reconvened for a light dinner at my house, since lunch had been quite filling.

Friday morning, we met for breakfast at the cafe in my neighborhood and around the corner from the AirBnB where PS was staying.  This cafe is one of a dozen or so in the US affiliated with "One World Everybody Eats," a nonprofit organization.  All of these cafes are built on the model that you "pay what you can."  You order and you are given a suggested price; if you can, you donate additional money, and those who are down on their luck can get a decent free meal in a charming location.  Since PS wanted to take off for home leaving by noon, I decided that the best use of our time was a tour of the western half of the Lehigh Valley, with a stop at the Allentown Farmer's Market and, along the way, a drive past the mansions of the Saucon Valley and a look at downtown Allentown, the largest city in the area.

It was fun to play tour guide and also to have more extended time for conversation.  Since I first visited PS's home perhaps a decade ago, it was nice to have the opportunity to play host for a change.