Terrible/Perfect

Sleepy

Away

Thanks to the extraordinary generosity of my sister and my brother-in-law, the girls and I are headed to Florida tomorrow night - all the way to the other corner of the continental U.S. The last time I traveled somewhere for fun was before I was married, in September of 2001, when my then-boyfriend and I went on a road trip along the west coast of the U.S. along Highway 101 in his mother's white Chevy Metro, camping and moseying and eventually checking into a couple of five star hotels in central California carrying external frame backpacks and reeking of campfire (another story for another time).That was a lovely trip. I think you know you're going to do fine with someone when you can do a road trip really well, whether you both like a fixed agenda or, like we did, you have a loose idea of what you'd like to see and go where the road takes you every day. We still have a bunch of in-jokes from that trip, and the best, easiest memories. I think we were engaged about a month after we got back. I remember coming home to call my mom to tell her we'd made it back and finding out that the family dog had died quite suddenly and I couldn't stop crying enough on the phone to tell my boyfriend that it was the dog and not, like, my nephew. I loved that dog so much.

We fought a lot in Paris, though...although that was some fierce jet lag and we were only there because his mom was dying.

Anyway.

We've been around a little bit since then, but always to visit family (although admittedly having family in a distant nation and in sunny Phoenix there were distinct "big life experience" and "get some sun" vibes to those visits). At this point travel is not in our budget, at all, so this is huge for us. Huge. I'm going to take my daughters to the Magic Kingdom and Epcot, to the white sand beach, and, the really truly real reason for our visit, to introduce my girls to my great aunt and to see her myself again, probably for the last time. She's quite old now, and the memories of her in my childhood are powerful stuff. Comfort and sweet tea and Spanish moss and thick Florida grass. Grapefruit, and love.

I'm terrified of flying, I have a list of things to run around and do tomorrow that makes me tired to think about and I'm leaving Mr. Terrible at home for nine days with the cache of bachelor chow that I bought for him today, so I feel anxious and sad and tired at the same time that I'm feeling thrilled to be actually going somewhere with my kids and my sister and her family.

We're away tomorrow!

The knitting is packed.

Apparently there was a reason why I didn't delete the "Travel" category from my tags.