Summer vacation time

(Yeah, I have a few "embargoed" posts that will come up here while I"m on break. Mostly about back-to-school, since I won't be at the computer to talk about what is currently going on).

In August, we usually went to my grandmother's. (This was my maternal grandmother - my paternal grandmother died when I was 12, and also, we usually visited her at Thanksgiving in the earlier years). We'd all pile into the big Tradesman van that my dad used to haul field equipment (because luggage and even the cat was no problem to take along) and set off. It was something like a 14 hour trip; we'd try to start early in the morning. ("Tomorrow, we are leaving at 6. We need to pack the car tonight") but it was never that early. ("Off like a herd of turtles" my dad would say. I always think that whenever a project gets started later than the planned time)

And we'd drive. First along the boring, awful Ohio Turnpike (nothing to see, no interesting little towns, and if you needed gas, you stopped at one of the "oases" where you probably paid too much, but otherwise it would mean getting OFF the turnpike and having to pay for that). Maybe lunch in Toledo (the years we didn't take the cat, we'd stop at Bob Evans....it was a tradition. Years we took the cat, we didn't stop, because we couldn't leave the cat in a hot car).

Years we were traveling catless (when a neighbor watched the cat for us), we'd sometimes stop off briefly to see relatives on the way. I don't remember where we'd stop for dinner....Gaylord, maybe? I think that was on the route.

And we'd drive, and drive. (Again, years we didn't take Sam, we'd not always go straight through - some years we swung over to Traverse City and stayed with an aunt and uncle).

And then, crossing the Mackinac Bridge. I didn't like that; I was afraid of deep water and crossing bridges as a kid, so it was five miles of discomfort. (I wasn't happy, some years later, when I heard that a woman in a small car apparently got BLOWN OFF the bridge in high winds one day).

And then, US 2, and the familiar parade of towns -St. Ignace, and Epoufette, and Naubinway, and Nahma Corners, and Garden...I don't remember the order of the towns now, but I used to know them off, and know how much farther it was once we passed, say, Epoufette. And then, finally, the sign for Rapid River.

(The years we took Sam with us? After the first year, he'd actually get up and start sniffing the air as we approached Rapid River, like he knew we were nearly there. I think animals do have a better "homing" sense than we do....I don't know if it was a particular smell, or if cat's brains can pick up some kind of GPS from the magnetic field of the Earth....but he seemed to know when we were close. Perhaps he just picked up on the tones of our voices as we were talking about nearly being there)

And then we'd pull in her drive, and she'd be waiting for us - even if it were ten o'clock at night.

And it was a week or two of relaxed times - cooler weather than we had at home (some mornings she had to light the gas stove to heat the kitchen enough). Seeing lots of relatives. Eating pie for breakfast (forbidden at home, but okay at grandma's). Walking down to the little IGA store, or the little Red Owl store, to buy penny candy (Well, really, nickel or dime candy, but still....being able to pick out what we wanted and get at least a few things for a quarter). I would sew using my grandmother's scrap bag - I have a couple of doll quilts I made while I was up for visits as a kid. Reading the old novels that she kept on hand. (There was one by the author of Heidi, that I remember. It wasn't about Heidi, though, it was a different story).

And then we'd have to leave. My mother would cry as we pulled out. I never understood that until years later, when I was getting on a train to go "home" after visiting them, once I had moved here. (I sometimes cry those same tears now). And then back home, back to routine, back to school shortly after.