August the What?

I promised more on our trip... Beyond the tragedy.

We left Friday night. Loaded up into the concrete jungle of our rented Tiguan. Car looks super nice. The seats are made of lead. Wait. Even lead would be softer. No way (that we thought) to put the back seats in recline. We seriously thought about driving this car off a bridge.

Wasn't so bad if you were driving or in the passenger seat. Really, wasn't so bad at all, especially after we learned to recline the back seats and found pillows to sit on, but that was not until the way home.

Anyway.

The frivolity started almost immediately. I had purchased some candy and the boys immediately took that candy into a direction that it shouldn't have been. We laughed so hard we were crying. We were excited to get on with our trip and were texting the others to find out where they were and when they were leaving.

It's a long drive. Like 16 hours, with a time shift. It took us about 18 hours, but we stopped for a real dinner - after stopping at a place we thought would be good, only to find their prices super, super ridiculous. We made an exit plan and only some of us actually kept to the plan. Ha!

Finally some decently priced food. Hit the road again and drove with a few driver switches.

Stopped for gas. Stopped to pee. Stopped when we got the call about our brother. I had been driving and I wasn't driving any more after that.

Arriving, beyond the news, was good. It was good to be back there. Awesome to see my aunt and uncle. We visited, sat in the hot tub, visited with the cousins, and generally relaxed.

The rest of the crew arrived early the next morning. They had a very eventful trip that included a flat tire and a long wait for road services. They were dead tired and once they got semi-set up, slept for several hours.

Family came to visit. Good food. Good conversation. Any my aunt gave me a coveted recipe that I can't wait to try!

Monday was finding out the funeral was Tuesday. My nephew called and asked us to come. We spent all morning searching for flights/return flights - finally finding what we needed at zero hour. Showered and got in the car for the hour long drive to the airport.

As old as I am, I had never flown before. Of course, I knew what to expect for 99% of it, but I'd never actually done it. Now, I've flown four times - all within a 24-hour period of time. It was okay. For three out of the four flights, I thought take off was pretty cool and landing sucked. For the last one, take off was horrifying and landing was good. Looking out the window was pretty much impossible on the first three flights. On the first one, the guy would block the window every time I looked. Jerk. He seemed to, gleefully, think it was a fun thing to do. On the last flight, I had a window seat. In the back of a smaller plane. It was dark, but still cool.

Anyway, we flew into an airport about an hour away from my house, rented a car and drove to my house. Slept for not even an hour and then headed out for the funeral. Once the reception was done, we drove the hour back, turned in our car, and went in search of food. Found an awesome little restaurant and had some amazing cream of crab soup. Then, we started our journey back to vacation.

Finally got back to our uncles after midnight. Sat and talked for a few and then off to bed since there was maybe an hour of sleep gotten.

The rest of vacation was good. Lots of food, laughs, and silliness. Then the long drive home.

I'm sure I'll have more stories to share in the future. For now, I'm trying to get stuff in order in my house and get writing done.

Behave!