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.