Family Reunion Day

After 2,812 miles on my motorcycle I made it into my parents' place with a day and a half to rest up before we embarked on the roads to Alaska. Of course, I didn't really rest. In fact, I did something to my arm playing my parents on their Wii. As was to be the norm throughout the trip but so far I was unsuspecting, I lost. What's more, I damaged my shoulder. I think it was the Wii baseball. They were just flicking their wrists but to get the speed of my fast ball up, I had to do the full wind up.

After not resting, I got up and was fully dressed for our 7:00 AM departure when my father serenaded my with his traditional "wake up" song. (Calling it a song is being generous, or at least the way he sings it.) Despite my protests that I was not only up but dressed, he carried through to the very end. Later he confessed that certain of my other relatives insisted that he "sing" the traditional morning song. I must admit that he had children who got up promptly without extraordinary measures. On the rare occasion that one of us triggered the "song," the ones who didn't made sure the guilty party didn't have another relapse for a while. Of course, I encouraged his waking my children up that way.

The first stop on our Alaska excursion was the Westbrook Family Reunion. This reunion has been occurring for years. Some of my earliest memories are of it, which means its once a year occurrence definitely made an impression. (Thanksgiving was another major "reunion" memory but that was only my father's parents' descendants.) At least half of the attendees, if not more, were the Thanksgiving crew and their descendants.

When I was a child attending this thing, it was a lot more play but I felt right at home eating and talking, a lot of both. Of course, I missed a lot of them as my family moved West. I was guaranteed the prize for the person who traveled the furthest to get there.

The highlight was the fundraiser auction of all the items each family brought. Since I rode a motorcycle, I didn't buy anything for me but tried to buy something for each of my sisters. It was easy for my two youngest, probably because I bought things they didn't really want. But my oldest sister decided she really wanted something and WOULDN'T LET ME BUY IT. Since it was only money and for a good cause, I kept bidding. Finally I attracted her attention and told her to stop bidding already. I don't think she really believed that I was bidding on it to gift it to her until it was delivered to her.

After talking late into the afternoon, so late it was evening, we finally left for our first night's stop, my middle sister. We got there late enough that we didn't do much but eat again and go to bed. The road to Alaska was beckoning and we wanted to get to it.