Epilogue: Vacation's End: Song of the day: The Long and Winding Road - The Beatles

"The long and winding road
That leads to your door
Will never disappear
I've seen that road before" - The Beatles

It is now Sunday morning and we are home. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! (This is sincere and not just a "figure of speech!")

Getting ready to come back home yesterday morning was absolutely horrendous! After getting stuff together, I decided to sign the guest book. My sister and I had already been up and down the elevator several times, with several loads. For a moment, I sat in the living room area, doing what I normally do at the end of a vacation...signing the guest book. Mom hollers over from the kitchen and "asked" me what I was doing, and I asked her why she asked. She then said "Can't you see there's work to be done!" Now, this is coming from a woman who was sitting amidst the kitchen disaster leisurely eating breakfast. I had none. My husband held his breath as he expected a response from me. There was none. A few moments later, as I was washing dishes, Mom said out loudly to my niece about me, "I think Aunt xxxx is sick of both of us". By then, I was, but again, in order to keep the peace, I said nothing.

"It always leads me here
Lead me to your door"

Morning breakfast on departure day has always been our family undoing. Not to proseletyze, but the biblical example of how Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt readily comes to mind. I cannot help but think that perhaps she would have remained alive if only she hadn't turned around to grab that last sausage biscuit.

"Why leave me standing here
Let me know the way"

My sister and I have always preferred to pack the crap, ahem, I mean stuff up and leave immediately, whereas the rest of the family always chooses to have a leisurely breakfast and have the dramatic OMIGOD! moment when finally realizing how close we are to checkout time and have everyone running around like the "Keystone Cops".

We finally got out of the house. My sister returned the keys to the rental office and we met each other at the cul-de-sac entrance. We continued on towards home where traffic was horrendous. As you can see in the picture above, the speed limit was 25mph. Being the brazen lawbreakers that we were, we chose to ignore it and blazed through town at an amazing 1 mph, leaving behind the corpses of tortoises and snails in our wake, who could not get out of the way fast enough! (Again, see picture)! However, earlier, and quite by accident, we discovered a quicker way to avoid most of the traffic and took it out to the bridge. This proved to be a blessing.

"Don't leave me waiting here
Lead me to your door"

People were driving like fools on the highway. We kept in touch via cell phone and had a couple of near misses and so, as a family, we decided a few hours later to ditch the Interstate and take the rural route back home. Finally, we arrived in our hometown, stopping at Mom and Dad's first to do an unload. My niece asked if she could come home with us. The answer was a resounding "NO!" Not now. We've got stuff to put up and business to attend to. My sister had driven my parents' car and left her car at home (Betcha that's the last time she'll do that!) We dropped her off and did a bit more of unloading.

My husband, "The Boy" and I stopped by a fried chicken establishment, picked up a box and then arrived home, unloaded everything, ate and went to bed. The sun was the last thing I saw when I went to bed last night and the first thing I saw this morning. We are home!

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah..."

Oh, and if you're at the house reading this, and happened to run across the guest book and then logged on to this site, I'd like to know...How was your vacation?