Home, James.

I was going to write about our trip home before I left Fairwood, and in fact I did, but Blogger ate what I wrote and I hadn't the heart or time to repeat. Its just as well, because the trip is so much more 'interesting' in retrospect...

We are normally fast travelers, or at least Mom is. We don't hang around staring at the scenery at rest stops, we don't sit down in Wendy's to eat our meals, and we don't sidetrack. Sometimes we even drive through the night to avoid traffic. We like the shortest route between two points, the fewest stops humanly possible, and certainly no extra days for frivolous visits.

But in the planning of our south-bound journey Mom must have lost her head.

Here is the planned itinerary:

Thursday: Leave Fairwood at 1 pm in two vehicles. Drive to NY. 4 hours.
Friday: Visit Dorothy A. Leave at 10:30 am in three vehicles. Drive to PA. 5 1/2 hours.
Saturday: Hang around PA visiting relatives.
Sunday: Leave PA as early as possible in one vehicle. Drive to GA. 12 hours.


Thus a trip which we have completed in a personal record of 17 1/2 hours has been stretched to cover four days.

I love driving trips. Somehow I managed to survive the harrowing years when my 3 brothers were small and completely dominated the van with endless bickering, silliness, constant need for food and bathrooms, and silly questions, and STILL enjoy road travel.

But even I know that dragging out a homeward-bound trip to cover four days is asking for trouble. :-)

Thursday: Due to procrastination and unforeseen obstacles I stay up most of Wednesday night working on Beulah photos. With less than 2 hours of sleep under my belt I am supposed to drive a car to NY. for Nate and Amy. We leave over a half our late and I have Megan in the car with me to keep my awake. Less than half way there the car starts doing weird things. Pretty soon Megan wonders out loud why the speedometer says I am going 0 miles per hour. I wonder why the car is slowing down even with the pedal to the floor.

Of course the horn stops working as well, and we were in a dead spot so we can't call: we watch the stern of the family ship disappear over the horizon as we drift silently to the side of the road.

They miss us pretty quick and came back. Daddy takes over the car and I crawl happily into the back seat and fall asleep.

We get the car to the next town, and with the expenditure of much time and money it makes it to NY.

Friday: Mom is to drive the van, me the resurrected car, and Daddy the Holscher's seal coating truck. We are quite the caravan. Friday is almost completely without incident. Oh yes, the truck has no heating, and with holes in the floor its rather drafty. Daddy spends the day in his snowmobile suit, and Stephen wrapped in blankets.

Saturday: Uncle Arnold spent Thursday night in the hospital with heart problems, but he is at the door to meet us Friday night. The time is spent in a happy family atmosphere of mutual love and harmony... have any of you met my Uncle Arnold? If not, I would be willing to introduce anyone interested to one the most colorful memebers of a colorful family. He is big of heart and of body, loud, happy, and sees life in black and white.

This visit includes at least 3 yelling matches, one tussle between Arnold and my mother, and a fair amount of verbal abuse flying between Uncle Arnie and myself.
He suggests that he join us on our next trip to Israel to give the Ultra-Orthodox Jews and the Arabs a piece of his mind. Somebody in the background is heard to mutter "International incident."

Sunday: Megan, Melissa, Uncle Arnie and I decide to go out 'to breakfast' late Saturday night, since 2:30 seems a bit early in the morning. We return from breakfast at 11:45, and leave for GA at 4 am, packed into one vehicle.

8:30 the sun is up, breakfast is eaten, and it slowly dawns on the general assembly that we are no longer in the snow-bound north. The temperature climbs with the sun, and all too soon a horrid truth is realized: the air-conditioning does not work.

The van has this cool little screen above the windshield which gives the time, the vehicles direction, and the outside temperature. Kind of like displaying the temperature in hell. After cheerfully racing through the 70's and 80's it seems to level out at 89. Then it creeps higher, dancing around the low 90's and briefly touching 95.

All life is reduced to the basics: " Daddy, could you open the window again?" and "Could I have something to drink?"

Around 2 pm, with the temp. at a happy 93, the van starts doing weird things in the parking lot of Walmart where we are stopped to buy food. Apparently these odd behaviors indicated a problem with the fuel pump. We spend 1 1/2 hours in some southern town identifying the problem, tracking down a fuel pump and buying said fuel pump. But we don't put it in. Daddy decids to see what happens. He figures that if it actually gives out we will just buzz over to the side of the road, nip under the vehicle, and pop in the new pump. He spends the rest of the trip visualizing himself doing so.

Daniel has a GPS. Instead of marking our house on it, he marked his tree-house. So every so often he yells out our progress to the half-dead contents of the van- "265 miles to my treehouse!" "65 miles to my treehouse!"

Then gloriously "19.5 to my treehouse!" I love Daniel's tree-house, and I have seldom been so happy to be in such close proximity to it.

I could kiss it when we finally pull into the driveway, all warm, soggy, and glowing with honest sweat.

Home, sweet Home.