Summertiime, and the livin is getting crazier

When I left off we were heading to eastern South Dakota I believe. It's a good thing I have short legs as with the table in the back, my seat had to be pushed as far forward as possible. We arrived in Brookings where Pam pulled my wedged in body from the front seat, dropped me off and headed to Estelline to see mom. I believe that was on a Monday, the 15th of June. I worked a couple nights and then we left on Thursday, the 18th for Wisconsin.

Now I've taken a few long drives with mom, many more than Pam and have at times pointed out to my siblings that it can be a challenge driving with someone that has been called a "back seat driver" a few times in her life, alias, MOM. My sympathy level for dad always increased as we would pile into a car and begin a "fun filled" day of "allow me to read every road sign to you". I always thought that was our version of the alphabet game or I spy game on our travels. We always reached our destination though and I'm sure that was because of the back seat driver's directions. After one very stressful drive, when I couldn't take it anymore, she informed me that "I thought it was my job" (to read the road signs, etc.) when I tried to make her aware that if one can't read road signs, one shouldn't be behind the wheel of a vehicle. Since then our travels have been easier, as I realized it wasn't me she was criticizing, it was my driving and it was after all her job. After a few glances sidways from Pam I thought to myself, aha, she's now realizing that maybe there's some truth to my occasional rantings and I'm really not as emotionally unbalanced as she used to think when I would vent to her about driving in the car with mom.

We stayed in Woodbury, MN with Heather, Steve and girls on Thursday night. We were greeted with a welcome Gramma Cathy, Great Gramma Jeanne and Aunt Pam sign on the driveway. Spent the night visiting and going for a walk which felt pretty good after all the sitting the car. Mom got a new hairdo and I got a much needed trim. We left for Wisconsin on Friday to reach Peshtigo by Saturday so mom could attend her 65th class reunion.

As we left Woodbury, the back seat driver said we just stay on this road all the way to Peshtigo. Being the obdient daughters we are, we just said okay and did as we were told. After reading every road sign, telling me how fast I was going and also what the speed limit was, letting me know when there is a car ahead or behind me and also if there was a stop sign or stop light ahead, I wondered why she was allowing her vision impaired daughter to get behind the wheel. Oh, wait a minute, my vision is fine, maybe it's my hearing I should lose as it would make the trip more enjoyable.

I do love my mother very much, and at the risk of creating a "ya-ya" moment I just seem to "have issues" as my great niece Kaia would say. My "issues" are that I am a responsible driver and it's a good thing I have the patience of a saint when behind the wheel and traveling with my mom or one of us would not survive our trips together. I've been single for 23 years (so most of the time I have been in charge of getting myself and family from one place to the other) I'm not sure how it is that I've been able to maneuver a motor vehicle all that time and reach my destination over and over again. Miracle I guess. I really think we should have video taped the whole vacation and could have made a movie entitled "driving in cars with mom".

As I said before Mom's class reunion was in Peshtigo which is on the north part of Green Bay. We also had planned to go to a wedding in Plover at the end of the week. Plover is quite a bit south of Peshtigo and Woodbury is pretty much directly west of Peshtigo. Imagine my confusion when I saw a water tower that had PLOVER written on the side of it, after all we had taken the direction/road that the back seat driver had said to. I've already noted that I do have quite a bit of patience so it wasn't really an issue to me that we had gone out of our way, but there's something about not being on the right road that just turns my mother into a not so mild human being and her polish temper flares a bit. Having known this I was shaking as I noted that I thought maybe we weren't in the right place or possibly we had arrived a week early for the wedding.

We stopped at a conveniece store and it was a big one, which was convenient for me because I more or less walked around avoiding the back seat driver until I thought she had cooled down abit. It worked and then I noticed her talking to the clerk. Thank God I hadn't been there to hear her tell the clerk that her daughter had gotten us lost, because I'm quite sure that's how the conversation went.

We got back in the car and headed north for about 20 minutes until out of no where appeared a sign full of bling and glitter and I could see the reflection of all that bling in both my mother and sisters eyes. Thank you God, I was off the hook as I could redeem myself by suggesting we stop, as I know that would calm mom and Pam would also enjoy it. I was right, they both seemed to smile as we pulled in the Casino lot. Our luck would certainly change, well at least mine did. Just so you know, I don't really like to gamble, if it were the only form of recreation in the world, I still wouldn't like it. But when I'm in a casino I usually spend a couple bucks, and I mean a couple. I think $10.00 is the most I've ever put in during an evening and that was because someone else gave me the money. I spent $5.00 and took out $65.00. I quit so pretty much walked around people watching while both mom and sis squandered a bit more $$$$$ and left with a bit less.

NOTE THE GLEAM IN THEIR EYES TO THE RIGHT!!!!!! Or, maybe that was the bacardi, I'm not sure, I'm just glad we were all still speaking at this point anyway.

Now that mom was calmer we could continue our journey and reached my aunt's lake home in the early evening. We had stopped to get a few groceries only to find the cupboard and frig stocked with everything we would possibly need by my cousin Judy. What wonderful hospitality. We enjoyed a delicious freshly caught fish dinner courtesly of Judy's family and retired for the night.

More at at later date.....the reunion, the farm, more back seat driving, golfing, swimming, the wedding, the motor home, some back seat driving, the 10 minute wedding transformation, the cemeteries, the HOT weather, the cousins, the aunts and the eventful trip home.....and hiway 10!!!

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Summertime, and the livin is crazy

It seems like I've been in a car more than anywhere else in the past 2 months.

On June 6 I flew to Albuquerque, NM to visit my sister Pam who lives in Zuni, NM. She is employed in the school system in New Mexico. After a visit with my cousin's daughter Marissa and friend Cher, we took off for Zuni. It started raining as we left to drive the 2 hour drive to Zuni and the rain seemed to follow us the entire summer. The picture at the left is a short distance from Pam's home. Very pretty. Reminds me of the Black Hills.

After a tour of the area, very short, we decided to hit the road for South Dakota. First stop was Santa Fe which we found to be quite beautiful, although we were up at 6 am and nothing opened until 10 am. We decided not to stick around and traveled north. We stopped in Las Vegas, NM at a little coffee shop and enjoyed the local gestapo enjoying pulling someone over every 20 minutes for over an hour. At least we weren't one of the lucky ones, although I'm not sure how we avoided it because there wasn't that much traffic.

Traveled on to Boulder, CO and Pam spent the night with her son Jason and my son-in-law Destry came and picked me up to take me to Longmont for the night. Very short visit with Jason as he had to leave for school, got to see his sons and wife and enjoyed the short visit. Couple of cute kids and so well behaved.

Got to Angie's and she was at boot camp. She recently moved and after a tour of the house we visited, it was so good to see her and Destry and the house is just what they needed, very comfortable. This was also a very short visit as we had to meet Pam around noon the next day to continue on to SD. Oh, and it rained while we were there.

When we finally got to SD we headed to Blackhawk to spend the night with Pam's son Paul and family. Got to meet all the kids and they had a nice spaghetti supper for us. Haven, Paul's 7 year old daughter and I were outside hitting the ball and guess what, it started raining. Once again. Oh, by the way, Paul's kids are all adorable, so darn cute, especially Soyer, the 7 month old, what a smile.

The next day we visited a friend of Pam's who I must say was very colorful and seemed to be having a bit of drama in her life. Originally Pam had planned to stay with her for a night, but plans change. While we were there it started raining.

Left for Rapid to spend the night with our Aunt Mary Bernadette and Uncle Ken. Really had a nice visit, a little wine and dined on tacos if I remember right.

We got to have lunch with sister-in-law Nancy and her granddaughter Chloe while in Rapid. Pam, Toni and I met them at Olive Garden, it was a great meal and we laughed so hard Pam had a slight accident, at least I think that was when it started.

She really needs to get some depends or a sling or something. (Actually we had laughed so hard at times on our trip that the depends thing would have come in handy many times.) Nancy still looks like she did in high school, not a day older, and Chloe, what a beautiful girl. And talk about personality, WOW!!!!! Does she get that from her mother??? I remember Marie being pretty quiet and shy, anyway we had a wonderful lunch and again, lots of laughs. And we learned to act surprised when we got our pix taken, so I tried it the rest of the trip and I don't think the look on our faces on most of the pix would be considered surprise, not sure what I would call it, more like "oops I just passed a little gas" but certainly not flattering. SURPRISE PAM!!!!!! Her camera didn't work most of the time but mine was always ready for a shot.

Off to Toni's for the night. Kaia was busy getting ready to go spend the month with her dad. It's just amazing what a beautiful family we have. All so wonderful and attractive and fun and unique. And so far we'd only seen about 1/4 the family we would eventually encounter on this trip. We spent a night a Toni's and visited with Jason's oldest daughter Hailee, and I haven't seen her since she was about 10 maybe, not ten anymore. Almost grown up now and I really enjoyed visiting with her. Had a great supper with Hailee, Toni and Dakota and something sweet and fattening for breakfast. Thanks for the wonderful time Toni, Mary B and Ken, Paul, Ang and Jason so far.

Back to Mary B's for a short visit and then off to pick up a 7 foot table (to the left) because apparently we didn't have enough stuff in the vehicle, it barely fit but it managed to make it back to Zuni eventually, and it really was pretty.

More on the crazy summer and the rain and more relatives and more relatives and more pictures and lots laughs and then let's get serious, but not really. Just a little bit more of a storm to add to our summer.

by the way......

There's much more to come. Watch for more pictures of the crazy summer on my photostream

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