Holiday Road

I'm glad it was an absolutely gorgeous day today. It was a lovely day for traveling. First, I still had a few things I needed to get done, starting with a run to the laundromat (after a few episodes of Rick Steves Europe on Belgium, Provenance, and the French Riviera). I got there around 10:30; it wasn't too busy. Good thing, because I had a lot of laundry to do, starting with my summer bed sheets. I finished Through the Looking Glass and listened to Rachel Ray.

Since it was on my way, I made a quick stop at the Oaklyn Library for this week's volunteering session on the way back. The computer consoles were surprisingly busy for such a lovely day. The adult DVDs really needed reorganizing. The kids' section wasn't nearly as bad, DVDs or books. I was in and out in less than a half-hour.

When I got home, I put the laundry away and made salmon with sauteed Chinese beans for lunch while watching National Lampoon's Vacation. Clark Grizwald (Chevy Chase) wants to take his wife Ellen (Beverly DiAngelo) and their two children on a cross-country trip from suburban Chicago to Walley World in California. Trouble is, thanks to Clark's hyper-planning, the cheap car he picked up before the trip, and sheer bad luck, every bad thing that can happen on the way does, from getting lost in the desert to picking up a cranky old aunt who wants a lift to Phoenix. Even when the Grizwalds finally make it to the park, trouble still follows.

While I'm fond of the Christmas movie and found Vegas Vacation to be surprisingly fun, this is still the best of the Vacation series. Chase and DiAngelo are enjoying themselves as the couple faced with one traveling dillemma after another, and there's some classic on the road gags here, including what eventually happens to Aunt Edna.

I went online for about an hour, checking my e-mail and playing WebKinz World, before Jodie finally picked me up at three. We were supposed to have left at 2:30, but Dad's friend's plane was delayed until 2:40, thanks to rain in St. Louis. We stopped briefly at Dad's house to wait for him and Gary. I got to watch Dexter's Laboratory on Boomerang with Jessa and chase Khai around the cars. (He and his daddy Craig had come by to borrow a sander. Craig's working on a new front door for their house.)

Dad and Gary arrived around quarter after 3. We got going around ten-fifteen minutes later. It was a pretty quiet trip. Dad and Gary talked old times. (Not only did they attend high school together, but they were in the same unit in Vietnam as well.) Jodie played solitare on her iPad. I listened to music. We were at Mom's by around 5:30.

Mom was the only one home when I got in. My sister Anny arrived with her son Skylar shortly after. Dad came in not long after that. Skylar and I watched Jake and the Neverland Pirates and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on Disney Junior while Skylar showed me his electric Lego bullet train and his huge books on Legos. We cheered on Jake and his crew as they retrieved their football from Captain Hook (and taught the greedy pirate a lesson in teamwork) and Mickey and Daisy as they pursued the Golden Boo Boo and dodged Sneaky Pete.

Anny had to take a shower and change anyway (she works at a fish processing plant near Wildwood Crest), so she was assigned to bring our pizza home. We had a mushroom and onion pie and a white cheese and broccoli pie (Sky and Anny's favorite). We watched CNN as we ate. Dad likes to keep up with world news when he's not at sea.

Skylar was really kind of wound up tonight. He kept putting off doing the one page of math homework he had until the last minute. Anny got so fed up (and it was getting so late anyway), she finally took him home around 8:30. I watched Spongebob Squarepants episodes and paged through old Christmas craft books while Mom browsed online. (I especially enjoyed the episode where Patrick and Spongebob compete in the Fry Cook Games, and the one where Patrick gets his license and Spongebob gets jealous.) After Mom went to bed, I got on.

Tomorrow, I'm going to go through Mom's old fall and Halloween decorations to see if I want anything, then we'll probably go into Cape May.