Relative Geography

This is a shot of my gramma and my "aunt" Mary (technically, since she and my gramma are first cousins, she is my cousin, as well) at the family picnic in Ann Arbor. Mary lives in California, and her son John was the reunion organizer. I think it's safe to say that Gramma and Aunt Mary were happy to see each other.

We spent Saturday at a beautiful riverside park spot in Ann Arbor. Other of my cousins played kickball; I spent most of my time there catching up with my cousins Olivia, Meghan, Duffy, Maize and lots of the progeny that was in attendance.

We went back to the hotel around 4, and were called by Gramma around 6 to ask if we were ready to go to dinner. So the big Saturday night dinner was in a new locale, and Lynn and I hotfooted it over there . . . you all will be happy to know that the Frenches were the second family to arrive. That's right; we were early!

Anyway, dinner was really nice. The food was great, and there were lots of stories of happenings from different family members. I got to hear from my up and coming Houston rock star cousin Ras, and talked to my cousin Mason a little bit-- he was too tired to give us an example of his poetry performances, but I plan to see him live on stage at George Mason in December.

The small people in attendance were quizzed by John about their favorite things and what they've been up to all summer. I got a great shot of little Will playing the piano-- he was egged on by all of the little girls there.

Rather than hang out again on Saturday night, I went home and did some reading and writing before turning in.


Sunday was breakfast and goodbyes. We had brunch en famille at Weber's restaurant, taking one last chance to hug everyone goodbye, and then we hit the road.

Plus ca change . . .

Oh say can you see . . . this is the "dawn's early light" at The Brownland, in Barboursville, Virginia, where my grandparents live. I got up at 3:30 in the morning on August 25th and my mother and I hit the road at 4AM to drive down there. It was the first leg of our trip to the annual family reunion in Ann Arbor, Michigan (no, my family is not from Michigan, our cool cousin John is the person who has taken it upon himself to continue the Waring-Steele reunion tradition, and so hosts us all in the town where he lives). We departed Barboursville at about 6:45AM and headed off down Rte 33, singing happy birthday to Lynn, who had a "milestone" day.

We continued on through West Virginia, across the Ohio River into my grandaddy's home state, and finally into Michigan. My BlackBerry faded in and out of signals, so I had a little trouble keeping the phone meeting dates that I had planned for the long trip, and during the moments that my phone did work, callers on the other end were treated to snippets of my mother's music, typical French family fracas and my ever fading signal.

I think we stopped a total of five times before our final destination-- once in W.Va for breakfast (despite the spread that Lynn had prepared, Dave wanted some eggs, so we stopped for eggs)and subsequents stops were because my grandparents and I needed a few bathroom breaks, and the Silver Ghost needed gas. We finally arrived in Ann Arbor around 8, just as people were finishing up the kickoff dinner at Weber's Inn.

We walked into warm greetings-- lots of familiar faces with big smiles and even bigger hugs. It's nice to know that even though we don't see each other often there is still a deeply felt connection and a ton of love.

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