That was a long one. And I love road trips.

I left on Wed July 31st the day after our 30th anniversary.  I drove from LV NV to Tucumcari NM the first day.  N Az and N NM are my absolute favorite region on the planet.  Stunning beauty. But... the way back I found a rival region that comes pretty close.

The next day I drove from Tucumcari NM to Fort Smith AR.  The third day I drove from Fort Smith to Atlanta.  DW had a business trip to Saint Louis and flew from STL to ATL. I picked her up at the airport just before Midnight on Friday.  That leg of the epic roat trip was 1900 miles.  My uncle's funeral was on Saturday.  That was the first time all of mom's side of the family had gotten together since 2008 for my GM's funeral.  My brother and my SIL flew in for the funeral.  This is the first time my brother and I and our three 1st cousins have been together in a very long time.  My aunt has three boys. Mom and dad had 3.  Interstingly of the 10 GKs between my mom and my aunt the split is equal. 5 girls and 5 boys.  Everyone jokes about where the girls came from since mom and her sister both had 3boys.  The two GGKs, one for my aunt, one for my mom, are both girls.  But, I digress.

DW was definately the rock star of the clan gathering.  Not a surprise to me of course. Beautiful, brilliant, successful, heart of gold, and draws people like moths to a flame. Several of mom's and her sister's cousins were vying for time with DW.  So were all of the kids (my counsins' kids).  I just watch with a stupid grin on my face.  I  am a truly blessed man.

I dropped DW off at the ATL airport for a late night flight back to LV on Sunday.  I was originally going to leave to drive back to LV on Monday. DW and I were to fly to Chicago that Friday for a weekend together before she had a large work event Beginning Sunday night through Tuesday.  Rather than drive all the way back to LV I decided to stay with my parents and my aunt for a few extra days then left on Thursday to drive to Chicago. I overnighted near Louisville KY and then drove into Chicago late Sunday afternoon and checked into our Miracle Mile hotel, grabbed dinner and a nap then ran to Midway Airport to pick up DW when her flight landed. I have never had much interest in Chicago. I was definately mistaken about that. We had a great time. The city is beautiful and the Miracle Mile area is well patrolled so there is not much vagrancy visible.  Saturday we toured the Field Museum and that area of the city, then headed back to our Hotel to figure out dinner. We ended up eating at Nando's Peri Peri Chicken.  It was one of our favorites in Qatar so when DW found it on Open Table in Chicago and it was half a block from our hotel that was an easy choice.  Not quite the same but close enough that we enjoyed it.

Sunday we did a Chicago River architecture tour by boat. That was pretty cool.  We then had a late lunch at The Purple Pig.  An amazing meal.  We headed to the event center hotel for check in at 4PM and then did a long walk with a coworker of DW and her DH for dinner at The Fire House. Another great meal.  Monday was the major day for the company event so DW was in that all day.  I held down the sofa in the hotel suite, had a nice lunch in the hotel, did some job networking and applications, then DW and I spent a quiet evening when her thing got out at about 9PM.  Her event went half of Tuesday so I hit the road for LV Tuesday AM with all of DW's luggage so she would not have to deal with it on her way home to LV. Her flight left Tuesday evening.

The city was hopping. The Air and Water show was going on, Metalica had a three day series of concerts, and the prep for the DNC that starts next week was going on. Fortunately we escaped before the political convention insanity got up to speed.

Tuesday I overnighted near Lincoln NE.  So that day I dove across half of Ill, all of Iowa, and half of NE.  Lots of corn fields.  A pretty drive.  On Wed I hit the road fairly early AM and drove across the rest of NE and 90% of WY overnighting in Green River.  I got the last room in town. They knew it and charged accordingly.  I ended up with a huge King Suite at the Hampton Inn.  Nice room, ridiculous price.  I intended to stay on I-80 today and then kick W to do a drive tour through Great Basin NP.  In the lobby of my Green River hotel there was a stack of maps for Flaming Gorge Natl Rec Area Scenic Byway.  So I headed S from Green River down the W side of the byway loop to Vernal UT.  What an incredible drive, views, rock, lakes, etc... that was.  I lunched in Vernal UT then hit the road for LV. I pulled into our garage at 8:45 PM just short of 13 hours after I left Green River.  What a stunning part of the country WY and N UT are.

LV to ATL was 1963 miles.

ATL to CHI was 717 miles.

CHI to LV was 1747 miles.

And... a few hundred miles of incidental running to airports, to visit my baby bro's grave at the mom's clan family cemetary founded by my GGF who donated the land and built the first church bldg... by hand about a hundred years ago.

My car did great.

My ass, not so much.  It is sore.  Muscle cars are a blast and it is exceptionaly comfortable for road trips but no ass can handle that much road time without protest. IMHO of course.

But, I am home with my bride.  

Where I belong.

And that is what I did on my summer vacation 2024.

Now for the scary stuff. Losing my uncle was sad though he had been very ill for many years. My aunt is a very dynamic, social, and athletic lady and had to give much of that up to care for her DH.  Her friends are already dragging her out for activities, tennis tournaments, etc..... So that is a positive through the grief.

What scared the ever living crap out of me is the changes in my mom.  Her memory and personalilty have changed incredibly since we all got together last Christmas.

She is getting all kinds of thing wrong in conversations, when recounting things, and pretty much no one can engage in discussion on those topics as she gets angry that people are correcting her.  Dad is scared shitless at this point.  This is not my mom and not his bride of 62+ years.   

She was very scowly the whioe time I was with them and commented several times that she just wanted to go home. Though the plan that she formulated was to stay with her sister for a week or so after the funeral to help with administrative stuff, and for she and dad to just be there.  Mom and her sister do both get tense when they spend extended time together but this was different. Mom was mean. My mom is never mean. Except now apparently she is. She will be 80 in Dec.

Dad and I had a chance for a private side bar.  He is working out how to have a private discussion with her GP who is also dad's GP since having a direct convo about this with mom would not go over well at all.  So we are all on pins and needles on mom's situation.

Hopefully this is not the start of dementia or alzheimers. My GrandDad (mom's dad) was Dx'd with early onset alzheimers and passed from related physical degradation related to it when he was 68.  I cannot see my mom like that.  I wish I did not have the memory of the last time I saw my GrandDad.