I took the laptop once to the internet cafe, but was unable to access the actual internet.  (So much more frustrating than straight connectivity issues…that little computer with it’s halo of internet vibes haunting me in the corner of the screen while both explorer and firefox belched up excuses.)

This is a view of the farm from behind the land my family uses.  There are roughly 20 acres that a local farmer (who farms things much more utilitarian than lavender) rents out.  What you’re looking at is a lot of weeds.  I took not one picture of the actual beds and flowers my parents grow.

I did however take a picture of this cool, evil-looking caterpillar.

We only spent two days at the farm - our first day in town and the next.  On Monday, we drove to the cabin in the woods of northern Wisconsin.  My parents did the same.  Yes, we chose to spend most of our biggest vacation together with my parents.  Why?

Because Dad cooks.  Well.  Amazingly well.

Besides getting fattened up by Dad, we spent our time picking blackberries, visiting the local wildlife rehab shelter (vacationing with me pretty much requires a trip to some sort of animal place), canoeing, hiking, swimming briefly (only one day was really warm enough to stay in the water long), reading, and sleeping.

Oh my, the sleeping.  We went to bed at 8:30 some nights.  Another reason that vacationing with my parents isn’t so horrible is that we all keep about the same hours - we were up by 6:30-7:30 every day.  But still, that’s 10+ hours of sleep.  Every.  Night.  Which is why the cabin is such an awesome destination.  When I travel elsewhere, I feel like time spent sleeping is wasted.  And believe me, this sleep time was needed.

Our last night there, we stayed up until at least 10, to have a campfire.  There is a drought in the area, so we didn’t make a huge one or let it linger long.  Above is my poor attempt to snap a picture of the peephole between the rocks.

One thing that was sad for me is that we saw a lot less wildlife this time around.  A few years ago, when I was up at the cabin with CB and my first marriage was crumbling, I could have sworn Disney had stocked the forests just for me.  Fox, wolves, birds of all kinds…this year we didn’t even see that many chipmunks or squirrels.

We did, however, see many frogs.  Y’all know I’m scared of frogs, right?  It’s always worth a gentle chuckle to hear me talk about my fear of frogs (”The…JUMPING!”), but Tom can attest that it is outright take-your-breath-away hilarious to see me whip around and shriek when I realize one is close by.

If you look close, you will see a brave squirrel helping himself of the last ear of corn.  Not only did we see fewer animals, they seemed more timid (except the deer of course - anyone in deer-infested states knows what I’m talking about).  I had to take this blurry photo by creeping up from inside.  Any other year, the squirrel would have jumped right up and shown me how to use the camera’s landscape setting.

Every year I try to take one good photo of the lake at sunset.

On Friday, we drove into Chicago.  Here we traded my parents (who continued on back to their farm) for my brother and sister-in-law, George and Francesca.

BTW, it seems every few years I get into my head that Chicago traffic is really not so bad and so I do not get militant with synchronized watches and 3am departure times so as not to hit I-94 at rush hour.  Then I go through I-94 at rush hour.  I already have a brief outline of next year’s rendezvous.  It might require my parent’s installing a helicopter landing pad on the Chicago townhome.

We did make it back in time to have dinner with George and Francesca at a great little Lebanese restaurant in the neighborhood.  At dinner, it was also decided that Francesca would drop us off downtown the next day, so that we could all more easily meet up and go to dinner on the northside.  Since we’d planned to be all over the city, this was incredibly convenient.  In general, George and Francesca made our stay in Chicago rock.  That is because they do.  Rock, that is.  Not stay in Chicago.  Although they do that too.

Our first stop was more of a mosey - we walked through Millennium Park on our way to the boat tours off the Chicago river.  I did not take many pictures of this part of the trip, because I am not tourist here.  The dork next to the huge lily is.

I am a huge fan of self-portraits however, and couldn’t resist a Bean-reflected one.

After the archecture boat tour of Chicago, we ate and walked back to the Field Museum.

Here is Tom deeply interested in some rocks.  I think we could have spent another whole day at the museum.  (More accurate - HE could have spent another whole day at the museum.  I could have wandered State Street for a churro.)

Here we are outside the museum, waiting for George and Francesca to pick us up for dinner.  We had Indian food at a great little place they used to live near.  Afterwards, their charity and pity extended to our flight home and we stopped by their place to check-in online and get that all-important “Group A” boarding pass.  My parents computer still runs on Windows ‘95 (seriously, they feel it’s safe from viruses this way because no one will bother with something that old.  How right they are) and therefore the explorer cannot display gmail.com which meant we couldn’t get to our confirmation number and we were going to have to check-in at the airport.

With boarding passes and a copy of HP no. 7 in our hands, we walked back to my parent’s townhome and tossed and turned all night.  Wouldn’t you know the last night of vacation we couldn’t sleep and came home feeling be-draggled?

We’ve been home for less than a week now.  Just yesterday I started to feel like I was back in the swing of things and remembered how to have grown-up conversations about boring stuff like work.

Tonight we’re off for a quick trip to see my grandmother.  A little over a month ago she was diagnosed with cancer.  Now they’ve determined it’s a different kind than what was previously thought, and she sounds pretty run-down and beat-up over the whole thing.  She was up for radiation until she talked to the radiologist and heard all the side-effects.  Now, just radiation is probably not an option and she’ll have to do chemo as well.  After another battery of tests to determine if it’s spread and if her heart’s up to everything required to get well.  (At least physically.  My trip is more regarding the emotional and spiritual side of things…)

I had been a little stressed as to how I was going to fit a trip into see her in the near future, but the sound of her voice made the decision very easy last night.  We come back Saturday night and I will get some sanctuary-time in on Sunday.