July 24 - Great Eastern Tour Day 8

Miles travelled: 265.4
CDs: 4
Swims: 2

5:50 a.m. - Previous night's suspicions of a hole in the air mattress are confirmed. Waking due to the light pouring through the poorly blinded windows, the floor can easily be felt through the mostly deflated air mattress. Try to fall back asleep anyway - no point in getting up until the architects are moving.

8:24 a.m. - On the road yet again. The car could probably drive itself to Rochester.

10:24 a.m. - Stop for chicken tenders and fries. Burger King only has breakfast food available. Hadn't realized how early it still was. Lunch will have to be more Combos instead.

1:45 p.m. - Arrive at home to find an empty house. This wouldn't be a problem, except my house key was left in Missouri. Call Mom, who is out with little brother at the doctor's and tells me if she'd known approximate arrival time a door could have been left unlocked. Now the only option is one of the open windows. After careful consideration and analysis, my bedroom window over the deck is chosen as the best bet. Lug ladder around to deck. Nearly put my hand through the screen trying to open it. Panic and climb back down ladder. Take a few deep breaths, go back up the ladder, push up and scoot myself ungracefully through the window, trying not to land on my face. It looks much easier on TV.

1:53 p.m. - "Hi, Mom."
"Hi, where are you?"
"Standing in the bedroom, unpacking."
"Okay, good, just wanted to make sure you weren't splattered on the deck."
"Nope"
"Good. We'll be home soon."

2:42 p.m. - Head over to neighbor's pool with baby brother for some swimming and brother-sister bonding. He is looking decidedly less yellow than last week. Water is chilly, and it takes us about 15 minutes to get in all the way. Don't stay in long, but as the neigbors are gone all week, we can come back any time.

5:15 p.m. - More brother-sister bonding, this time over season 3 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Don't entirely understand what's going on, but it doesn't seem to be a requirement for viewing. Wonder how long the vampire makeup took.

7:00p.m. - Swimming again, this time with floaties. It is obvious which tube belongs to which neighbor child: lime green for the older one, pink leopard print for the litte one. It would be really funny to see little brother floating around on pink leopard print, ut lime green is more appropriately sized for him. Water is still chilly, and now there is no sun. Plans are made to try again tomorrow at the heat of the day.

7:47 p.m. - Grocery shopping with Mom. For reasons unknown, the grocery store always brings out the silly in us. I dance to the music. Mom stares at 8 packages of the cheese she wants while complaining that she can't find the cheese she wants. I mock Mom's need to reorganize my placement of the cart items. Standing in the pasta aisle, 3 aisles down from the pop, Mom picks up the case of Coke, then the case of Mountain Dew that was below it, puts down the Coke, then puts the Mountain Dew on top of it, reversing their placement. There's no preface to this activity - she just switches the cases of pop. 2 minutes of me laughing so hard I can't talk go by before we can continue.