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Labor Day weekend trip
2005-09-06 - 5:42 p.m.
More good news out of New Orleans for me at least. Miraculously,
my aunt and uncle's house is completely unscathed. No broken
windows, no trees down, no flooding, no vandalism, nothing wrong.
There are a few branches down, but they all missed the house. The
beautiful white baby grand piano is fine, all their stuff is okay, and
when residents can go back, they have a place. They also
evacuated the company's servers from the office in Metairie when they
evacuated the humans, so they plan to set-up a new office in Houston
soon. New Orleans has so much clean-up and rebuilding to do, I'm
amazed at their good luck.
This weekend I put over 1000 miles on my truck. Friday night I
left MD around 8pm and drove until I was tired, which ended up being
2am outside of Statesville, NC. After 3 hours of sleep and a
shower, I was back on the road at 6:45am to reach the Coronation site
at 9:15am. After Court, from Coronation I went to Gastonia to
hang out with some of my Sacred Stone peeps for dinner including a
typical 3am Chatnar session. After a Cracker Barrel Breakfast I
got on the road to Maiden, NC to luxuriate with the nieces at their
other Grandfather's home and pool. Spent the night Sunday in
Conover with the sister, fabulous brother-in-law, and nieces until
getting on the road after lunch homeward bound. I returned home
around 7:30pm to unpack and take my truck into the shop for some
maintenance today. I was uncharacteristically in bed before 11pm
last night.
Coronation
was fabulous. I know there were lots of folks who could not
attend, and I missed them, but there was work to be done by me. I
applaud Sean and Bess, baronage of Storvik, for taking the $ they would
have spent on the trip to Coronation and donating it to the Red Cross
instead. I got all the regalia transferred fairly easily, crown
leases signed, etc. Then I got to hang out with Bera some, see
some of the A&S, book a photo session with the lovely photographer,
and see a couple of courts. The site was lovely, but I wish I had
more comfortable shoes to wear with my Roman. I just couldn't
wear merrels with the chiton, I just couldn't. But the blister
has faded fairly quickly, thankfully. I deftly avoided the
merchants, but kind wish I hadn't after hearing of the $30 tapestry
loom that could have been used for sprang, but oh well. I think
my wallet rather appreciated it. Due to the lack of attendance,
it had a feel of a small local event, and I luxuriated in not having to
run all over the place the entire day. Big vivants to Robert and
Elspet who received court baronies for their tireless efforts over the
duration of the reign. The accolades were well and truly deserved.
Bera and Lydia rode back with me (to keep me awake, and so Chris could
indulge in his bad habit without smoking out the ladies) and we had a
grand time, chatting the entire way. I can't wait to see Lydia's
photos of the event, she always takes such good ones. We also
touched base with the Twins (which I still apologize for not checking
with about crash space before, I'm a 'tard) and left message with the
'Nar about our evening plans. First we swung by Lydia's house to
let out her three pups while Chris and Kevin went to relieve Freddy and
Ursa, and meet us back at Lydia and Kevin's. I got to play with
corgies and we went out to dinner for steak and crashed back for
hanging out at Kisaiya and Fiona's place. They have the most
comfortable couches in the world, and we stayed up chatting in various
stages until 3am, when I finally kicked Chris and 'Nar out at 3am cause
I needed sleep. Then I went back to the most comfortable couch
and slept solidly until 8ish. It was pure decadence. We
rounded up the troops for a Cracker Barrel Breakfast with Chris, Bera,
and the Twins before we all went our separate ways. I got to see
pretty wedding photos from the Walters/Whitfield gig and indulged in
country ham and grits. hmmm...
Sunday, once I finally found Willard's place, I got to spend the day
hanging out with family. We went swimming in the formal black
bottomed pool, and played there for hours. There was yummy
burgers and dogs on the grill for lunch. When the adults needed a
break, Willard turned on the player piano to Elton John songs and the
girls danced for about an hour while we got to sit and relax and watch
them. In the beginning I ran out to the truck to get presents for
the nieces. I was going to wait for later, but I had found these
precious danskin dance outfits with little sparkly skirts that I got
for the girls to use as dress-up. But since they were so
appropriate, the girls immediately changed into them and played in them
for the rest of the afternoon. We also got to explore the new
house, go down and visit the chickens in the coop (not your average
chickens as they are were all sorts of fancy varieties from Portugal
and spain, and such, in many different colors and styles.
Willard, Clint and I caught chickens for the girls to pet and coo over
before washing our hands and getting on the road. We got home to
Conover for girl time in the guest room while Clint made pizza for
dinner. The adults then retreated to the basement for bad B
movies, The Gamers and
Demon Hunters by Dead
Gentlemen Productions.
Monday, I awoke to creep downstairs to retrieve a sacred Diet Coke from
my cooler in the truck, and found out I was the only adult awake.
So I told the girls to wait a bit, and I got them breakfast (they were
already watching Scooby Doo) and some for myself, and did dishes that
were piling up. It was kinda fun to hang out with the girls
without the parents, and I was surprised that they waited for an adult
to wake to get food. Although apparently Niece #1 had tried that
before and split all the cereal out of a box, so she knew better than
to try. Jodi and I hung out in our PJs and swapped listening to
each others groups' music. They sounded great in the National
Cathedral back in June. Sorry I missed it in person. After
a lunch of pasta and alfredo sauce, I got hugs and kisses and got on
the road homeward bound. The drive home was uneventful, except
around 4 I started to feel tired, so I pulled over to a rest area and
napped for 20 minutes before getting back on the road and home.
Glad I did stop to nap since I then got struck in traffic on 81 as we
all had to merge to the right lane because an ambulance was tending to
a person from a flipped and totaled car. Glad it wasn't me.
Gas prices were high, but on the whole not catastrophic. I think
the most I paid was 3.29 for regular. Otherwise I found 3.09,
3.14, and occasionally 2.99. I made sure to fill up every half
tank just in case there was a shortage someplace. It does seem
that in Gastonia there are several stations with no gas or only premium
left. I seemed to find the only station with regular left, but
was out of the premium gases. I did get an emergency back-up
gallon just in case that I luckily did not have to use during the
trip.
Thus was my labor day weekend, busy, fun, family, swimming, and now I
am happy to be home and very tired. I'll be helping out this
weekend with the bake sale at Lochmere's Masters of Defense event, as
well as with Kynny's fight-a-thon fundraiser for the Red Cross.
Looking forward to that. Hoping to see some of you there.
Take care folks.
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