Road Trippin
Oct 8th, 2007 by Mike
So I was told at the absolute last minute (less than 24 hours) that I was going to Disney with the rest of my family. I had planned on going at the beginning of this year but as my financial life has started to stabalize I decided that i didn’t want to go so I could focus my funds into getting out of debt.
Lo and behold, I went to Disney. Road trippin with my brother, his wife and two kids, stuffed into a Buick Ranier–for 18+ hours…
Actually, it was a freaking blast. Steve and I traded off behind the wheel and we saw some really interesting things. Unfortunately, every single picture I took didn’t turn out. Who says digital camera’s prevents that.
On the way down sometime in the middle of the night while I was driving, I saw a shooting star. Not just a ‘blink and you miss it’ type shooting star, but a ‘holy shit what is that? It’s still lit up! Guys are you seeing this?! WOW!’ type of shooting star. At 70 mph down I95 somewhere in Virginia (North Carolina?) this thing was lit from the left side of the windshield all the way through to the right side of the windshield before it sputtered out and re-lit for a final encore.
Later when I told Mom, she said “had your grandmother seen it, she would have said ‘someone is going to die.’” It may have been hind site for the end of our trip which I will get to in a minute.
While in Disney, just being there, the magic of it all, it’s hard not to get caught up in it all. The employees really do a great job of making you feel welcomed. They make it easy to forget what is waiting for you back home. It’s almost enough to make you believe that the stories we’ve all grown up with are real, talking rats, talking fish, faeries, princesses and their princes… it really defies words.
I’ve been to Disney twice, once when I was 18 months and again about 10 years ago. I don’t understand the 18 month old visit, to me it seems a waste (hence the reason I didn’t take Kenzie along with me this time) but I look at my last visit, and I realize how under appreciated it was. I had so much fun this time around, I’m already planning on going back in a few years. I am older and able to appreciate things that I had kept my parents from doing. Funny how full circle it all comes, now I’m the parent and have to cater to what my daughter wants to do at my own expense. It makes me smile.
We saw the Arabian Knights show while we were there. Think ‘Medieval Times’ but with gypsies… in scantilly clad clothing… oh… and fishnets…
*ahem*
So, uh, where was I. Oh, right, Universal Park. This was the first time I have ever been there. It was fun, but I’m not sure I’d go back. I got motion sick after the Dueling Dragons, but I also forgot my Dramamine, so I have nobody to blame but my self for that.
Justine didn’t handle the trip well. Our vacations overlapped. I left her for a week, and she left for her vacation in Puerto Rico the day before I came home. This is the first time she’s ever been alone on her own. I’m proud of her, I think she did fine for being alone but when she slept (which wasn’t often according to her) she was on the new futon in the living room because she didn’t like the big bed all by herself.
Cute but funny. While she was in PR, I was like “mmm big bed, no cat” *sprawl out*.
On the way home from Disney somewhere outside Savannah, Georgia, about 2pm we got the call from Kris (my sister) that my grandmother had taken the downhill turn. Steve talked to her briefly and passed the phone to me.
The conversation went something like this:
“Hi mom-mom, how are you doing?”
“…okay…”
“Okay? You don’t sound okay.”
“…okay…”
“Listen mom-mom, you need to get some rest, save your strength. Just know that I love you, and McKenzie loves you very much, okay?”
“..okay. Bye bye”
Now I was kicking myself after that. ‘You don’t sound okay’. Pfft, way to be positive. Stupid.
Needless to say, we got the call at 7pm in South Carolina (North Carolina?) that we didn’t make it. My grandmother passed away, called at 6:45.
My mom had made it. Her flight landed at 3. She made it to her side by the time she passed. I am so happy about that. She never would have forgiven herself had she not made it.
Mom-mom is in a better place now. It doesn’t matter what you believe in. I’m not a religious person, but whatever is waiting for us when it’s time to go, it’s waiting to stop our pain. She’s with her husband now. She’s been forever faithful, he passed and she waited for him to take her home. She believed and that made it okay to let go. I’m happy for her.
The funeral was last Thursday and it was very nice, actually. We didn’t have a precession, just a gathering at the graveyard. She was buried with her husband. The cemetery she’s buried in is one of the last in the area that allows a vertical burial, they put her casket on top of my grandfather’s stone sarcophagus and allowed us to place another headstone. They’re together again.
Hope to write again soon. I know I’ve been slacking. Sorry!