No, I haven’t seen Lord of the Rings yet. Maybe today, or tomorrow.
Meantime, I greet you from Faerie nonetheless.
Not that being here in Southern California and visiting with parents and in-laws is really like Faerie. I mean, there’s plentiful food and drink, good company, realms of wonder for Katherine to explore, and a strange, timeless, sense where days rolls by in a quiet, busy blur, and where worldly responsibilities seem to fade in importance …
… until you wake up, like Rip Van Winkle, and twenty years have passed, and all those things you promised yourself you’d work on during your vacation remain undone. Eep!
We made it from Colorado to California safely, and quickly. We didn’t get out of downtown Denver (because of a meeting Margie had to attend) until 10 in the morning. That put us at about 5 p.m. wending through Albuquerque rush hour, and approaching 10:30 as we came up on Flagstaff. We took the southern (I-40) route, rather than cut across Utah, because of reports on the Weather Channel, et al., of snow showers beginning there Friday. Better safe than sorry, and all that.
So as we approached Flagstaff, we also approached a decision. Katherine was intermittently either asleep in the back, or was quietly watching truck lights. We could stop in Flagstaff — and then run the chance that she wouldn’t sleep in the hotel, and the certainty that she’d not want to get back into the van in the morning, or be happy with another day of travel, and there was still that storm that was being predicted, extending even down to Flagstaff — or we could keep going.
We kept going. Margie and I traded off every three hours or so, one of us napping in the back next to Katherine, the other driving into the darkness. We encountered only one blip of weather, fog and sleet coming through the Cajon Pass.
We made it to my In-laws about 5 a.m., handed off Katherine, and caught about 5 hours of sleep. We’ve been kind of catching up ever since (not helped by Katherine having decided Friday night that she really wanted to sleep in bed with Mommy and Daddy, but not really sleep, but squiggle around and kick and giggle).
So here we are. And it’s fun, and Katherine’s having a blast with looking at the Christmas Tree and exploring a new house. She got her bangs cut yesterday, with all family in attendance.
The Christmas cards I worked on so hard last week have arrived with people here in the last few days, so that’s all a good thing.
It looks like all the gifts we shipped have arrived.
I got my “early” Christmas present, my new digital camera. More on that in another post.
My folks have been over the past few evenings — the first a “welcome to California” quiet pizza party, the second a “Pre-Christmas Eve Dinner” last night (since various scheduling difficulties make getting everyone together Christmas Eve problematic).
And I finally got around to blogging. Will wonders ever cease?