Because I might be crazy, in addition to heading in to our busy season and buying a house, I booked us on a weekend flight across the country and back.

Junior’s folks were visiting his sister and neices for ten days, and he hadn’t seen them for a few years either. His mom and I were talking about it when I got the bug in my ear to go too. So we did, even though I don’t get luxuries like “vacation.”

 

We spent all day Friday flying from California to Pennsylvania, getting up at 1:30 AM to leave for the airport. We spent a day with his folks being tourists in Washington DC, and then spent all of Sunday flying home, getting back to bed at 1:30 AM again. We got about ten or twelve hours of sleep between Thursday and Monday morning, which really added to the insanity.

 

It was a good trip though. I haven’t spent much time on that side of the country and Junior had never been. It’s amazing to us dry Californians just how green the East Coast is. It didn’t even look like they watered their lawns, yet everything was green and manicured. The differences in the buildings and types of houses were very striking to us too; you just don’t see a whole lot of townhouses over here, and houses sprawl out horizontally rather than climb vertically. Our kids would love to have a basement, something kids over there take for granted. We seem to like to live farther apart from each other, and more isolated by privacy fences too, in the west. It seems strange to me to go out to grill on the back porch only to wave at the neighbors doing the same thing twenty feet away.

Although we had rented a car, we chose to take a bus tour to DC so we didn’t have to deal with driving in traffic or parking. I hear parking there is kind of horrible. It looked like an old-folks’ tour at first, but the bus didn’t fill up halfway, so we spread out and relaxed. It wasn’t one of those tours where you all dress up alike and listen to a tour guide hold forth at each stop either; this was really all about the transportation. The driver/guide dropped us off near the museums and we spent half a day at the Natural History Museum before being shuttled off to the various monuments.

Once we got to the touristy stuff, our driver was still good. He’d tell us a few things while on the road and then turn us loose again. It ended up being perfect for us, since Junior’s dad has a bum knee. We got to see a little bit of  everything without too much walking.

 

One of the things I found remarkable was how easy this trip was, with regards to the people. A trip like this and being sleep-deprived can put a huge strain on a relationship, but there wasn’t any of that between us. I keep marvelling over how much I like his folks too; there would have been no way in hell I’d have gone on a trip voluntarily with my last set of in-laws, but I genuinely like being around these people. I do wish his neices had gone on the tour with us, but they’re teenage girls and were just not interested. It would have been nice to get to know them a little better, but at least I got to meet them.

By the time we got home, we were absolute zombies. Junior doesn’t like to fly, but got a few catnaps on the planes. I was in the middle seat the whole time and don’t sleep all that well sitting up anyway, so I didn’t get one wink of sleep in transit until we got back to our own truck. Then I conked out most of the way home. 

 

We got home in time to trade the travel stress back for the house-buying stress, but at least we had us a little adventure. If you’re going to burn that candle at both ends, you might as well do it up right, no?