Saturday morning, mrs tg got together with a couple friends from high school with whom she has recently reconnected. I was planning on a lazy morning to myself, until we took breakfast on the back porch. It was simply too gorgeous to sit around in the house, so I got my bike and gear out of the van before she left. It was a short ride to the bike path, and I headed north, thinking I might drop in on her parents, who live within a few blocks of the path. But I'd promised to be home before she was, as I had the house key, and checking the time as I got into Glen Burnie, I figured I should head back. I needn't have, as it turned out; I was there an hour and a half before her. But that gave me plenty of time to cool down and shower, and at least I was there to help sister-in-law and her husband unpack the car when they arrived back from the beach.
The wife and I then headed out for a get-together with my aunt, uncle, cousins, and family friends. It was so nice to be able to spend time with them; usually we only get to see a couple of them each trip. Though the few hours we had together were too short, they were full of wonderful reminiscences. Then a stop by mrs tg's folks' place for a short visit and quick swim, and supper back at the sister-in-law's house. (Now, just out of curiosity, should the plural possessive of that be "sisters-in-law's," as in "we'd had dinner at both sisters-in-law's condos"? Or am I wrong about the singular possessive, too?) Then the two sisters went out to a movie while we husbands finished watching the ball game (O's win!) and played some backgammon.
Sunday brought an early rise to finish getting the car packed - not too much of a chore because we packed so well before leaving the ocean, so we hadn't had to unload much for these last two nights, plus I'd gotten the bike loaded back in the night before. Then we went to mass in Glen Burnie and had breakfast with mrs tg's parents before hitting the road to return home. I was refreshed by the vacation, but absolutely not ready to come back; I suppose that means we planned things just right, and managed not to overdo or overstay. It was a beautiful day for driving, with a nice mixture of clouds and sun, and we were amazed at how temperate things were for mid-August. Arriving home, we quickly unloaded the van and went to pick up our dog, who sure seemed glad to see us again!
(btw, my mother-in-law's surgery seems to have gone very well. Thanks, God!)
So good to hear about your mother-in-law. I just turned 50 in July so I better get in for the colonoscopy.
ReplyDeleteSister-in-law or ... ? Don't ask me, I can barely speak the language! I do know that if your wife has two sisters, you have two sisters-in-law but that's about it.
Your vacation sounds great. Relaxing, seeing family. Terrific. But I gotta tell you, my geography is not all that good, either, so I looked at some maps. I would have bet the farm that Columbus, OH was a heck of a lot farther from MD than it is.
Thanks for the recap and the beautiful picture.
I'm always amazed by my own geographic misconceptions. I always severely underestimate how far it is from Denver to L.A., for instance. I never mentally put CO next to KS, even though I was in SW KS several times as a kid. From here, it seems more as if CO and CA would be next door neighbors. I think part of that is because the states are so much larger out west. But that doesn't explain why I always overestimate the distance from L.A. to Vegas, probably because of CA's shape.
ReplyDeleteFrom our place here in Orange County, it's pretty much 400 miles to anywhere we want to go, say, San Francisco. And we never leave the state. From here to Las Vegas is about 300 miles and then another 100 miles (or a total of 400) to our son's place in Utah.
ReplyDeleteWhen we were planning our Washington D.C. trip a couple years ago, I was amazed to look at the map and see how close everything is.
You are exactly right about the state sizes. I wonder how that came about.
Well, I'm not sure I know for certain all the why's of the size disparity, but might know enough to speculate.
ReplyDeleteI believe the original colonies were mostly established by individual charter, which probably at least roughly specified their boundaries. The Constitutional Congress really struggled to balance equal versus proportional representation between the states - thus the two houses of Congress. I suspect that issue then drove population requirements for future states. The more western territories were less densely populated, so it would take a larger area to meet the population requirements for statehood.
That's my unresearched guess, anyway.