road trip chronicles day 4

 


 We are not big collectors of stuff on our travels. There are very few knicknacks, souvenir t-shirts, or shot glasses in our house. What we do like to collect are photos and memories - today I got the best of both.

After a lovely night in the Sheraton Read hotel in Chattanooga, (where I swear they stuff the pillows with baby angel feathers and the beds with cloud fluff, because both Rico and I declared we'd never slept in anything so comfortable in our lives), we set out for Marietta, Georgia, home of my mom's lifelong friend Lorraine, and her husband Kurt.

They were wonderfully gracious hosts and we felt so lucky to have a few hours to spend with them. Leaving with the best gift of our trip, was a completely unexpected bonus.

I have never seen my parents on film together - ever.  And as far as I knew, there were no childhood movies of me - apparently, I was wrong. Today I saw myself, nearly as old as Yoda is now, with identical pigtails (but blonde), standing in the backyard of our house in Bakersfield.  My dad, young, vibrant and silly was grilling steaks, while my mom popped in and out of the house. There was no sound - there didn't need to be. I watched it five times - me and my little family, happy, laughing, before the rest of life took over. Kurt sent me a snippet of it on my phone, and I am hoping to post it here, when i get a better connection, just so I can watch it over and over again.

We said our goodbyes and kept moving toward Tampa. We settled for the night in Tifton, Georgia, where Yoda declared the pool much too splashy for her tastes, and settled in to bed quite happily. Tomorrow we will see ocean and cousins and my baby's last day of being two.