A sort of homecoming

I'm not even sure where to begin on this trip. I don't think I've even processed a lot of what I think and feel right now, and Lord knows I haven't discussed things with my husband.

Suffice to say, it was a long trip even though we were not there that long... one that wasn't my favorite, but the pool was nice and we got some ammo boxes at the flea market.

AND we went to the Football Hall of Fame in Ohio, so not all was lost.

The trip started out magnificently with a family reunion on my dad's side of the family. His dad's clan (Fogarty) and his mom's clan (McIlroy) haven't had lots of mixing together time. My cousin Deb worked like mad to put together a slam-bang party and it was fun to meet some of them McIlroys, and to see an Aunt and Uncle I haven't laid eyes on in years.

I always liked my Aunt Margie. She lived in California forever, and now she lives in Arizona... I had no idea, or I would have made a point of hooking up with her when we did our 'ZonaFest in 2001. We have a standing invitation to do so again, as does everyone in my family have to come here. It was so nice catching up with her, and hearing about her life in the "Super Desert," as Geoff calls it.

My uncle Buddy, I haven't seen him for about 20 something years. He moved to Florida, and there hasn't been a good link between our house and his ever. My sister hunted him down in Florida when she lived there and they had some nice visits. I always remember Uncle Buddy treating me like I was a little shit, so I didn't really care if I saw him or not.

Note to self: Be the Aunt that the kids miss when you don't see them for long stretches of time, okay?

Anyway -- he was lovely and kind and nice and polite, with a rapier wit and zings left and right to shoot at my mom, who always seems to be the target of the humorous barbs at family gatherings.

Note to self: Please tell mom how much you love her.

We had a lovely visit with the clans, and then on Sunday we did some geocaching in my hometown, which was hard because it was so amazingly hot. We ate dinner, went to bed, and got up the following morning to start our drive to Pennsylvania.

Monday night we arrived, visited with the family for a wee bit, hit the hotel and Geoff found the pool. I found the pool too. We enjoyed a swim, and got up the following morning to do it again.

Tuesday we visited with Doug's grandmother for a while, she's still got her humor about her and lives alone, but I'm not sure how long that will last. She seems weaker each time we see her. She's always so lovely to us, and it's hard to spend time with her because she can't hear well even with her aides... so there's a lot of yelling.

Note to self: Drop the grandmas a note to say you had a nice visit.

We spent time with Doug's parents, who treated us to lunch at Don Pablo's off rte 60 there near the PGH airport. We then went to a used bookstore and browsed, and back to the hotel where there was more swimming.

Wednesday I got to meet our nephew for the first time, who back in March had surgery to unfuse plates in his skull. He's lovely and looks like his mommy as much as his big sister looks like her daddy. They were lovely and we had a good visit where much laughter ensued. I absolutely adore our niece... I could spend hours with her. She is gorgeous, and funny, and she dotes on Geoff. Don't all pretty girls, it seems?



Doug didn't call his parents, which I do believe irritated his mom, and we ended up having the evening to ourselves, so we did some pimpy geocaches around Beaver. We then returned to the hotel where some swimming took place.

Thursday Doug and Dad made a plan of action for a fun day. After brief swim time, we met dad and went to the Football Hall of Fame in Canton Ohio (all bow in reverence!) It was about 90 minutes from where Doug grew up, and it was a fun place to be. The kids had a great time, I thoroughly enjoyed the history of early football and AFL memoribilia, and yes, OJ Simpson's jersey is still in the Bills' collection.



We ate dinner with Doug's other grandma who lives in Eastern Ohio, and it was a fun visit, but again -- she doesn't hear too well. Geoff got bored and wandered off. It's hard to be an 8 year old boy and hang out with GGG.

We were all very tired when we got home, and while no swimming took place in the evening, a visit to the gym made Geoff happy as he ran on the treadmill and rode the eliptical and bike for an hour. We all slept heartily, and woke early. Very brief swim, and then we went to Rogers.



Fridays in Rogers Ohio. What can I say. (Be sure to read the linked blog entry which talks about humanity in Eastern Ohio, and the fleamarket itself) Rogers Sale is like the biggest dang flea market in the universe. Perhaps. Dad likes to go there each week, and he has a systematic plan of attack where he goes through the tables, watches the auction and then sometimes visits his mom on the way home. We had done that already the day prior, so after spending one long morning at the sale, we went to a little roadhouse for lunch, and then Doug's dad had us swing by the little East Palestine cemetary where his grandparents are buried to show us how to get there.

That was sweet of him. It was nice.

We went back to the hotel so we could kill some time before going up to the house for dinner. Geoff swam, Dad and I drank a beer and watched him and talked, and Doug and Jessie both got naps (jerks).

We experienced an epic Geoff meltdown while waiting for my brother in law's birthday recognition time (ie: party but not a party) and my life got incredibly stressful and my ire got up beyond where I usually allow it to be. I had a crappy evening, and so did my son.

It was "no party" as we say in our house. That night, we had no swimming, and everyone was in bed by 10.

Saturday morning came and we were slated to split. We packed up, checked out and had lunch at Doug's folks and hit the road. We made excellent time, and I got C to the J to the K on the phone in the Scranton area, and we hooked up with him and the Missus for some beer and chat at Damon's by the WB/S airport.

Sad to say, that few hours time was the most fun I had all week.

I love Doug's family, I truly, honestly, really do. I just am different from them, and their understanding of things and how stuff can and should work is totally apart from mine.

My son is a high priority for me, and his happiness is not found in sitting on the porch chatting about family. There is a lot more that he needs aside from good conversation and a nice tall glass of iced tea. He doesn't get happiness at their house ... and they don't seem to understand that perhaps a concession should be made. All I have to say is, thank God for the pool at the hotel. Without it, maybe I would have flown home on Wednesday.

Anyway -- we stopped with CJK and Mrs. CJK, enjoyed some real quality time, albeit brief, and I laughed more in that short couple of hours than I got to laugh all week. We continued driving to almost 11pm when we reached Danbury CT. We stayed at a hotel with the honkin' loudest air conditioner in the universe, which kept turning off and on all night. It sounded like my alarm clock, so it woke me up each and every time it cycled.

Ugh.

We got up Sunday morning, Geocached in CT. I got stung by a bee at the last one we did, and we drove home.

The funny thing about getting stung by a bee is I performed one of the single most amazing acts of physical prowess I've ever executed in my life, and only my daughter was witness.

I was standing up on a ledge, about 3 feet above the trail. There was a stone wall that ran along the ledge and I'm not sure why the trail was so depressed, but it was. Doug was on the other side of the trail looking over there, and I was nosing around on my side. The kids were sitting on the trailside, tired and bored.

I knew it was time to go, because we had to get the dogs. I yelled out to Doug that it was time to abandon this one, we weren't finding it. Doug was about 80 feet from the coords when he found it, and I yelled at him "that's awesome. Sign the log and meet us at the truck." And the bee stung me.

Looking down at the back of my thigh, I saw it there and three others flying around behind it. I knew I was going to get hit again, so I went to climb quickly off the ledge and told the kids to get outta Dodge because the bees were on me.

It was then that the tips of my hiking sandals both slid under a branch, and I began to fall, face first, off the three foot high ledge. I had all the foreward momentum, and my feet were stuck. And I was slapping at a bee dangling from the back of my right thigh.

Sensing that I would most certainly break my neck, or my arm, or at least suffer some major facial structure damage, I pulled my knees up to my chest, releasing my shoes from the branch, and I jumped.

I managed to land on both feet, peed my pants a wee bit from the landing (I had to go pretty badly in the first place and landing 200 plus pounds of woman on a hard trail shakes a bit out, ya know?) and started to run.

"That was so cool." Jessica was amazed.

Yes it was, and only you got to see it. How sad is that. I yelled to Doug that I'd been stung and we were hightailing it out of the area. He didn't yell anything back, so I presumed he knew and we hoofed the .36 out as fast as we could. I got back to the truck and iced my sting. Doug caught up to us and asked why we left. He couldn't hear me yelling to him that we were outta there, and had no idea I had taken one for the team. I don't know if he believes I performed my acrobatic feat, but Jessica saw, so it happened.

If a tree falls in the forest... If Chrissy jumps in the forest...

So anyway -- yeah. That was my vacation. Returning to work was hard, because I felt like I needed a day to me. But I went back and so missed my girl C and buddy M. Jerm and his wife had their baby, a little boy, on Thursday. He rules. Can't wait to see him and sniff his little baby body.

There are Flickr pictures, and I started a new set because of this trip - License plate bingo! I actually saw more than I got pictures of... but the batteries in the camera were dead so I couldn't take pictures of Oregon, CA, Washington, Iowa, Idaho, and Arizona. Plus, I skipped all the New England State ones because I knew I could just take them here. Which I will and will add to the set.