From My Road Trip Journal – April 30, 2009
Hello Friends,
Back to the road trip we go again . . .
Ahhhhh home . . . Danny, I, and the two dogs arrived at our hometown of Portage Lake, Maine on April 30th. There were still small snowbanks by the side of the road and melting snow scattered here and there in the northern woods when we arrived at my Mom’s. Spring was arriving, but slowly. The ice on the lake had gone out a week or so before we arrived so the lake was in full majesty. It was good to be home and with my Mommy, relatives and friends for a week. There’s nothing like being home with Mom and all the goodies you love, purchased, sitting in the fridge and the pantry. I love to be spoiled as much as the rest of humanity, but . . . just for a week or so. After that, it’s time to get back to being an adult again. Whaaaaa! Carolynn, (our daughter) feels the same way when she visits me. I buy her favorite foods, and drinks, and take her to her favorite restaurants, shopping, etc. It’s a Mommy thingy, I think. Nurturing is good for a set period of time, then, it’s time to go back to feeling grownup again. My granddaughter is the same. “Love you for spoiling me Grams, now back to the real world.”
In the first two days, I ate way too many chocolate doughnuts covered with yummy coconut. They only make them in Maine . . . as far as I know, and I eat as many as I can without getting sick. Red hot dogs turn me on too, despite the fact that I’m familiar with the red dye 4 thingy or whatever they put into them to turn them bright red!
My sister-in-law had a party for Danny and I at her home on the lake. We saw relatives of Danny’s that live in the Northern Maine area that we hadn’t seen in forty years. What a reunion. It was so much fun to be an adult and see all the grown up family that we hadn’t seen in so many years. Of course, none of us changed at all! Actually, it was inspiring. We’re all hobbling along and our lives are not so bad, thank you very much.
Danny and Sharon went down to Houlton to visit Dan’s Mom in the nursing home. It was really a tough trip for Dan. His Mom has advanced Alzheimer’s disease and she didn’t know him. He likes to think that . . . for a moment. . . she did recognize his presence, and perhaps she did, who knows? She is frail and mostly sleeps her life away. She is receiving wonderful care from her caregivers, so there’s no complaining about her care. I do know she wouldn’t have wanted to live that way and it’s hard to accept that she lives in La-La land.
My Mom threw my Uncle Bubbie and me a combination birthday party on the 5th of May. I honestly didn’t realize how much I had impacted lives until that party, or . . . how much my relatives and friends had meant to me. Soooo many memories and soooo much love flowing around the room. My Mom’s home was filled to the brim with cousins, uncles, aunts, and friends. My brother Scott and I had gone shopping the day before for combo party favors and we got a ton of those big balloons. (We let them fly free after everyone left.) We had two of everything including an ice cream cake, and of course, my very favorite carrot cake, made from scratch by my Mom. The cards and gifts I received were so touching. My cousin Jenny came through the back door, saw me . . . and begin to cry with joy. Now that was a moment to cherish. Jenny and I were childhood buds. My girlfriends, (cousins) were all there, and believe me . . . there’s tons of them. As children we did everything from playing baseball on the backfield grass, to tin-can alley, (kicking a can) or maybe, playing hally-hally-over (yelled over the roof) with a big ol’ ball thrown over a garage roof to the other side with eager cousins ready to whip our butts. (I can’t for the life of me remember the rules to that game.) Riding horses for leisure, using our imaginations, and working long hard hours was the norm in our small farming town. We played as intently as we worked and didn’t know the difference. It was life in a small rural farming community, and that’s the way we grew up.
My Uncle Bubbie is a joy, and I love him dearly. He was the youngest in my Mom’s family of three kids. Aunt Glena is the oldest, Mom, then Uncle Bubbie. Uncle Bubbie is full of laughter and jokes. He never stops his trickery. All three of the siblings are in their eighties. They’re all going strong as horses, and they all have a strong sense of community and family. My Aunt Glena has a “huge” family of children, Grands and Great Grands, and Great-Great Grands. They’re all a really close knit and loving family. (Almost a community really) Every Labor Day (the Condon clan) throw a big party for my Aunt’s birthday at the old farmhouse. Around 200 plus people show up! Danny and I are going to try and fly up this fall and attend the festivities.
We left Northern Maine the next day, heading back down south toward the Pennsylvania Turnpike and onward to our home and Arizona.
I personally received two tickets on this trip. One for parking in handicapped parking! I had my sticker, but didn’t remember to put it in the window of Mom’s car. I also received a speeding ticket outside of Missouri someplace. I was passing a truck so I could pull off at the next exit and we could get a hotel. The cop who approached our truck was so typical angry trooper. He practically spit out the words “registration and license please!” He was like a guy from a horror flick or something, and I burst out laughing. Danny about smacked me, as I couldn’t stop my snickering. He brought back the ticket, and abruptly walked away as Danny was asking him if there was a good hotel in town. He was rude, and angry, and mean, and . . . I didn’t like him at all, but I did pay the fine, which was $29.99 dollars for the speeding and the rest of the one hundred twenty dollars plus or so was for AARP, old age pension, etc. Strangest tickets of all the entire road “stops” that I’ve ever had the pleasure of receiving in my AARP history?
Back home for two weeks of R&R! Then, back on the road again. Oh Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy!
Coming soon to my BLOG . . . Reports from my journal about my Washington State trip to attend the Gran-girls graduation parties in June.
See you in a few days.