Day Ninety-Four, On The Road (Not By Jack Kerouac) on Wednesday Night

After a LONG day of driving, we have stopped at a motel and are tucked into a mostly completed room at Best Western along the way. It reminded me of the trip I took up this direction with Mamma, I trekked up to her house (a 2 1/2 hour drive from my house) packed her into the car and as we were backing out of the driveway, I realized I had forgotten my passport. We had to drive ALL the way back to my house, dig it up and start over again. A mistake I thought I would never make again. Still I found myself in the car with TR only two months ago exiting the freeway to the airport and realized, yes you guessed it, I had forgotten my passport. TR got me home to get it and back to the airport with time to spare, he is amazing! Today, all I forgot was my jacket, and I remembered that when we were just 5 minutes from the house, much better this time.

We stopped at Mamma and WJRY's house to drop off the doggies and take WRJY out for his birthday (mamma is on kid duty away from home this week). We had a lovely breakfast and lots of pleasant conversation and then petted our puppies good bye and away we went. This year it was an extremely uneventful trip through the mountains, not like the year we got snowed out going up and the car caught on fire on the way home (a story for another time). We made it over the mountains with a little rain, no traffic to speak of and are now recharging for the night to get ready for tomorrow's leg of the journey.

My mind is working faster than I can type, I have had several ideas I want to write about fly into and out of my head already, so I will tackle one and then see what happens.

The word journey makes me think of our forefathers (and mothers, let's not forget the women that trekked across this country alongside the men and in skirts to boot!) that struck out across this continent in the early days looking for riches, or freedom or just a place of their own to start a new life. The trips we take for granted now were epic journeys back then, adventures, explorations of the like that must be searched for now as so much of this planet has been tamed. Those brave souls packed up their belongings in wooden carts, covered by canvas (if covered at all) drawn by horses, with no Wal-Mart or Target to pick up anything if they forgot it. No place to easily replace torn or lost clothing. Everything had to be brought along and carefully cared for, and they travelled at a snail's pace compared to the way we jet back and forth, up and down side to side all over the face of the planet. I can't imagine how it felt to grind along all day with a caravan only to find an unknown river that couldn't be crossed or a chasm that was impassable. They must have been hardy souls, courageous and unwavering. As I fly over the mountains in my comfy automobile with music up front for the grown ups, movies in the back for the kids, GPS so we know the best, fastest route to get there I think how times have changed, what would they say if they could see how we traverse those mountains now?

The other thing that crossed my mind that I was able to grab before it escaped me was an event that happened today. While we were at Mamma and WJRY's, he and TR were talking about guitars and such, so the kids and I looked the the photo wall. Mamma has always had a photo wall, well since I was about 11, she has had one. G'ma and G'mpa had one down the stairs to their basement and I remember standing and the top of the stairs, walking down one step at a time looking at all my ancestors as they peered, stonily back at me. I loved seeing those faces that I belonged to but did not know, I loved seeing the smiles of the children that I only knew as adults and couldn't really imagine as children even though I was looking at their pictures. They were my family and as mysterious as they were, I belonged to them and they to me. SO there I was with my own two children, standing looking at photos with them. Some they recognized and they laughed and laughed at the differences between who they know now and what the pictures showed. It was a bit like a treasure hunt, looking at all the faces, trying to find ones they recognized, sorting out who belonged to which side of the family, seeing where the curly hair came from, seeing ancestors engaged in activities they didn't know their family enjoyed. I was swept back into my own experience at my grandparents' house and was touched by the connection I shared with my children and my mother and shocked by the realization that one day it would be my photo wall that my grandchildren stand in front of scrutinizing and translating into their belonging.

With that I am off to bed. We have an early morning, an errand to run before we go to Dad and BC's house, family to meet up with, so much to do and I need a good night's rest. Goodnight!

Puppies