We've had great weather for the past couple of days, and I've had the chance to take advantage of it.

On Sunday, Mark and I went with Jean and Joe J, and Karla and Al, to the swimming pool at Marsh Creek State Park. I love that place. And the weather was PERFECT for being outside -- not too hot, not too humid, but sunny enough to make the pool water pretty temperate.

Yesterday, I went with my parents to visit Aunt Rita, who's now home from the rehab place and is getting home care visits. She'll start physical therapy at home, too. We took her food shopping for the first time in a long while. Then we finally got to try something we've been intending to try for a while: we got a video conference going via AIM with our relatives in Chicago. :) They had their regular computer, and I had a netbook with a webcam.

The connection was a little choppy, as I had to tether my cell phone to get a connection and the reception's a little spotty in Brigantine. But we could all see each other. I know Aunt Rita got a big kick out of that. Now I REALLY am looking forward to when her computer is replaced. (The one she had before took some damage from a power surge and is now unusable.) If she has a webcam and a wired internet connection, she'll be able to do video conference calls any time she wants.

We had something intriguing happen while we were on the way to Brigantine. It started because we ran into some incredibly bad traffic due to roadwork being performed on the AC Expressway. It took us so long to get through the bottleneck, that we decided to make a pit stop at the Expressway's rest area. But just as my dad was getting ready to pull into the left lane (where the exit to the rest area is), he hesitated to let a police car pass.

Which was good, because when I tell you that state trooper was FLYING, I'm not kidding. I've been in airplanes that have moved more slowly than that. When he pulled into the rest area that we were headed for, we joked that maybe HE'D also been stuck in the bad traffic and needed the rest room, too.

When we pulled into the parking area for the rest stop and found an empty parking space, we noticed that the car next to us had a state trooper's vehicle pulled sideways in front of it, blocking it into its parking place. The trooper was talking to the driver of the parked car. Then, just as we were getting out of our car, the OTHER state trooper's car pulled in and blocked the car next to ours from behind. I think that second state trooper was the one that went zooming past us at about 99 MPH. I thought, "Boy, they REALLY want to talk to that other car's driver!"

We went into the rest area, and when we came out, the cops and the car next to ours were all gone. So I don't know what that was all about. I don't know if the person parked next to our car was actually a Person of Interest to the state police, or whether he or his car just LOOKED like someone that the cops are trying to track down. But he, his car, and the troopers were finished conducting their business by the time we were ready to resume driving.

Tell you what, though. If I don't see another cop car trying to break the sound barrier, in an exit lane that the car I'm in is ready to pull into, that's fine with me. That was a bit unnerving. Thank God my dad is a cautious driver and pays attention to traffic before changing lanes. If, instead of our car, there'd been someone who drives like it's his road and everyone else is just travelling on it, there could have been a horrid accident. Fortunately, everyone's Guardian Angel was on duty and alert, so nothing came of it but an anecdote for our family to tell.