third

We drove from Carson City on Sunday morning, never to return. Oh, it wasn't that bad. But we didn't need it anymore.

Around South Tahoe to Emerald Bay. I've already told you about the drive. I'm quite confident that I have seen the edge of the world and if I ever need to go around Lake Tahoe again, I'm taking the North road. Once was enough, thanks.

Emerald Bay was amazing. Really just as beautiful as promised. There were trailheads across the street, but instead of checking them out we drove on a bit. I wanted to get out of the cliffdriving region.

A stop at Sugar Pine Point State Park, which was great for the boy. All the running one kid could do plus a chance to stick your hand in Lake Tahoe, which isn't as easy as I thought. Everything costs there, including Sugar Pine. $10 for parking. I would kill for $10 parking in downtown Philadelphia, but out there it was like getting robbed. You're welcome, California. I hope you use my dollars to pull you out of yourself.

Then up and over to my Aunt Ann and Uncle Charley's house in Quincy.

Family vacations are different when they actually include family. I'm guessing if you Googled "family vacation" you would get kid friendly spots with lots of McDonalds' and petting zoos or whatever it is that people do with their brats. Plenty of coupon codes and travel tips about how to make the tantrums less and the giggles more. But this wasn't like that.

I haven't been in this particular set of A&U's house for at least close to a quarter century, I'm guessing. I saw them both when I was 18, at a wedding anniversary party for my grandparents. Their 50th. Can you imagine? I have a hard time picturing what living with myself for 50 years will be like, let alone living with another person.
I saw my uncle at my grandad's funeral.
We read each other's blogs, which is neat because you get to see a side of someone that isn't necessarily brought to Thanksgiving Dinner. Not that we've ever spent Thanksgiving together.

It's just a saying.

It's not supposed to be okay to let a dozen years go by without seeing someone you love, but there are perks.

My aunt loves to cook and I always liked to watch her do it, a challenge because you don't really want to get in the way.
I wonder what she sees these days when she looks at her hands.

Have I ever told you that I'm obsessed with women's hands? Always have been. When I was little I used to watch hands do things for me. As I grew, I watched the same ones do things with me. Now I see them do things that have nothing to do with me and I think that is the essence of caregiving. For me, with me, for you.

My aunt's hands.
I see the same exact hands that snuck me candies in Niagara Falls thirty years ago. Skittles. I wasn't allowed candy. The same exact hands that gave the best underduck pushes on the tire swing in Ithaca when we were kids. I would watch those hands and the minute I couldn't see them anymore I knew my belly would drop. She plays with her bracelets the same way as she always has. I like people's fiddlings as much as I like their hands. She cooks the same way, holds the measuring cup at the same level, which is still practically above my head. My aunt is tall and that makes me feel good and little and loved the same way at 32 as I was at 2.

My uncle's space between the sides of his eyes and hairline are exactly the same as his dad's, exactly the same as Jake's. Their eyebrows all raise up the same too. Do mine? Maybe it skipped me. Or girls. I'm the only girl so I have no one to compare. I wonder if he thinks of his mom every time he eats one of the TicTacs in the console of his car the same way I think of her every time I eat a TicTac. His laugh hasn't changed. (Beware a person who changes his laugh.) He and Jake played the same things that I used to play with him. Silly putty and dice and globes. All things that we played with when I was little and learning. Thanks to Uncle Charley, Jake's obsession with spelling things has turned over to an obsession with adding things. It's a nice diversion.

My cousin drove up three hours from Auburn. On a motorcycle. To turn around and go home after staying just for dinner. No surprise if you know him. I haven't seen Alan in nine years, he was living in Germany when we were staying the summer in Rome and he flew down for a week. Years don't matter between us, we're always thick as thieves. The nice thing about cousins is you don't have to live in the same house as them growing up so you get to be friends your whole entire lives.

So we all talked and walked and ate and talked and ate and talked and walked and passed out somewheres around 10. It's hard to go latenight when ten o'clock is one o'clock and your brain just re-processed half your bloodline in less than half a day.