This Thanksgiving was a rollercoaster of emotions wrapped up in a series of follies.
We knew that two of the kids wouldn’t make it home for the holiday. Our daughter who attends Maine Maritime Academy traveled to Pennsylvania for Thanksgiving. She was actually on Fall break, so she had the entire week off from school. It would have been great to see her, but travel from Castine, ME is simply not conducive for even a ten day visit
Our son is nearing the end of his 16-week training with the US Army Reserves at Ft. Sam Houston in Texas. He can’t travel, so we knew that we wouldn’t see him either. We did get to talk to him for a little bit, so that was nice. Not the same as a visit, but it’ll have to suffice.
One of our twins drove from Boulder, CO and the other drove in from Rochester, MN by way of Iowa. They both started out on Wednesday evening after work. I’ve finally reached the point in life where I understand why my Mom would always ask me to check in on the drive. Of course, back in the 80’s, we didn’t have cell phones, so “checking in” meant stopping to make a call. I was really bad about it, but I did sometimes check in. I was pretty good about calling her when I got to my destination.
Despite the availability of cell phones, great cell service, and drives long enough that stops to gas up, eat, and use the restroom occur a couple of times on the drive…my kids are pretty bad about checking in. Unless something happens, of course,
About 4:30 I got the first “update call”. Unfortunately, I was busy housecleaning and missed the call. In retrospect, it was probably better that I did miss it. After several tries to call her back, I decided that it wasn’t anything important, and that maybe she was checking in from her mid-trip destination. She was driving six hours one day and five the next with an overnight stay in between.
About an hour after the missed call I did get one of those calls that you hate to get. “I’m ok, the car’s ok, but I’m stuck in the median”. After a couple of nervous moments, I was able to discern that she’d missed an exit, lost control of the car, and slid into the grassy median in fairly heavy snows. Fortunately, she was able to get a tow truck to pull her out, and she was actually back on the road when she called me.
Having one of your kids in a precarious situation, with hours of travel ahead of them, and being several hours away is nerve wracking. There’s nothing I can do about these situations, but I fret anyway. Since her twin sister was driving all the way in from Boulder in one night, I made the requisite call to request “safe travels”. My Boulder-resident daughter reported that it was clear, the roads were relatively empty, and travel was going along great.
I breathed easier when I got the call that my Rochester-resident daughter called me to say she had arrived at her destination. But I didn’t relax completely until her sister arrived at our house around 12:30am. I was sufficiently wound-up that I had trouble getting to sleep for a couple of hours.
The next day our final traveling daughter made the trek the rest of the way home…without event. Then the craziness that is our hectic lives began. Giggles and jokes. Lots of hugging and snuggling occurred with the new center of our universe-my grandson. And stories were bantered about. It was Thanksgiving day, but we had opted to postpone our traditional meal until Friday to accommodate the variable travel schedules. Throughout the day we snacked and snipped at various foods. I was just getting ready to start preparation of our big meal for the evening when they crew decided that they were going to go out shopping for Black Thursday (or whatever moniker we’re going to use for shopping on Thanksgiving on the eve of Black Friday). So our meal was put on hold and we continued to snack away.
The crew took off and I had the evening with my Grandson. We had a great time, although he was pretty worn out from all the hugging from his aunts and uncle. He mostly slept, but I got some work done with him firmly glued to my shoulder…his favorite sleeping place!
Friday turned out to be beautiful weather, and our traditional meal went off without a hitch. My Mom was able to come over, so it was another round of catch-up, laughing, and lots of stories. Saturday was pretty much the same thing. While there was some shopping on Friday and Saturday, most of the day was spent together as a family. One of the girls introduced the family to the card game Spit, and it took off like wildfire. Hours were spent playing that game in all sorts of different family member combinations.
After church on Sunday it was time to pack up the two cars and send the girls on their way. Unfortunately, as is too often the case they left much later than planned. With 11 hours on one side and 9 hours on the other, there’s a lot of travel ahead. And lots of worry and fretting on my part.
So it’s finally 7:30 and they’ve both been on the road about six hours. We just got word that our other daughter has arrived back in Castine, ME…so at least that travel piece is completed. But for the last six hours I’ve been thinking about their travel. The weather took a turn towards the cold, but there isn’t any precipitation that I’m aware of. Yet that doesn’t change the fact that I’m going to be worrying about their travel.
And if history holds, I won’t get updated during their travel, and since they’ll both be arriving late in the evening…I probably won’t get updated that they’ve arrived. I don’t want to nag them, so I’m trying to find other things to do. Thus far I’ve managed to distract myself, but I’m not sure I can hold off contacting them all night. But I’ll try.
Sometimes the holiday rollercoaster, especially with the travel involved, is a rough ride. Don’t get me wrong, I’m elated that they were able to make the trip home and I loved every minute that they were here. But sitting here while they’re out on the roads is nerve-wracking.
