The Lizard's Den: Memorial Day Weekend

The longest weekend ever.

A picture from "National Lampoons Vacation" with the Griswald family. This is my life now.

The hubster took Friday off from work. We drove to his dads house (grandpa)... a mere three hours away. Grandpa and John were busy making the house look perfect for a party that they were going to throw, so we took a field trip to Gettysburg.

I grew up near Valley Forge, and have driven through the park many times. There are small log cabins and canons and fields overlooking more fields. There is a small road with trees perfectly lining both sides. Don't forget the monuments of soldiers and horses, and large places to sit on steps.... to contemplate and envision what happened here a really long time ago... or you can hang out with the 40 year old man wannabe soldier wearing a very clean tailored civil war outfit and a leather man purse and fake musket and some fancy boots telling you about his time in the war... it's weird. Or I mean, its so educational.

So Gettysburg is the same thing... without cabins, and it is three times larger. So much land! It was beautiful. We went on the auto tour. "Look more fields! Oh look more canons". There were lots of plaques saying, "West Virginia, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania battalion fought here"

Poor hubster would have to field my questions.... I would ask stupid questions like, "So how did they get here?, West Virginia is like really far" The hubster would mumble... "They walked! That's what you do in the army... walk" "Oh....that's really far" "Yup, it sucked to be them"

"Didn't, like.... a ton of people die here?" "Yeah, a ton" "So don't you think they would think it was stupid that a bunch of people are driving their BMW's on tour, taking snap shots of the worst day of their lives?" "Yup... you would think so..." his eyes start to cloud over my my ignorance..... "And wouldn't... oh never mind...."

I just looked out the window as the hubster drove us around the park with the kids quietly snoring in the backseat and van morrison quietly playing on the radio. What a waste of space. There could be horses all over this field.... Oh, and look! there my friends..., is a sign to ride your horse down that trail... and there is another canon.... and who mows all of this?! And was it this open? I'm picturing "capture the flag" (a childhood field game) with grown starving men running around in the bushes killing each other over some land.

I came home feeling confused and a little dumb. It dawned on me that we didn't really learn anything about the civil war. My school focused hard on the industrial revolution, slaves, Nazis and the pilgrims.

I took a class in college about the civil war, I stumbled through it because I cared more about just getting a passing grade on the test so I could go out drinking on Thursday night.... I was dating a really smart med student at the time, and I'm ashamed to say that I had him write my papers for me. What a waste of an education. I didn't care about colonel mustard and agent orange. I wanted a screw driver and a free ride to the club.

John was born and raised in the area, apparently he was drilled on the civil war as a child, they knew all the commanders and the name of each battle. They had to know this, so that when people came to visit they weren't going around dumb, like me saying "oh look another canon!"

Anyway, so that was Gettysburg... very pretty....unmarked cemetery.

And then we went to go see some family an hour away. The minute we walk through the door we were questioned on Chickens, and Horses. I was in heaven. Turns out the hubsters cousin is into chickens and living off the land, and grid too! The hubster and his wife stood staring at us as we excitedly chit chatted on stuff that they were forced to love... He knew all the breeds, and had built his coop himself....thrilling chit chat! Needless to say. We had lots to talk about. Or rather I did.... I talked so much that I was feeling shaky by the end... my brain had trouble forming real sentences and speaking to adults... (the aftermath of teaching toddlers and infants the art of speech I suppose).

Then we drove back to grandpas house to socialize some more at his memorial day party. We had trouble getting the boys to bed. They finally fell to sleep around 9 pm which is terribly late for them. James promptly woke up at 1 am, and decided that he only wanted to sleep in our bed. He drifted off to sleep at 3 am (on the floor). Watts then woke up at 5 am completely soaked through and was shaking from his wet and cold PJ's. He stayed in bed with us for an hour playing on my phone. James then woke up... and I wanted to kill myself.

The hubster jumped up at 5:45am and said, "OK time to go home" and with that we packed our stuff, jumped in the car, and drove three hours straight through the morning to get to our house at 9:45 am, for the memorial day parade that was going down our street at 10am.

We couldn't get to our house, so we had to park the car down the road and hoof it. With the boys in PJ's, and Mango my sick baby chicken in a bucket. Oh.... we brought my sick bird on vacation with us...because that is perfectly normal, and that's my life now.

The neighbors looked at us like we were zombies walking out of a war scene. And with that, I plopped us on the front yard and watched the parade of old cars, and veterans walk down our street while the hubster made me some coffee and changed diapers. Stick a fork in me, I am done!

The parade ended... we ate lunch and crawled into our beds.

I feel like I ran a marathon.
I can't wait to get horses so I have an excuse to stay home.... vacations are not what they used to be. It reminded me of a scene out of National Lampoons Vacation.... on our way to "Wally World"