It’s a very rare event when one of the family members comes “Out West” for a visit. The large expanse of DNA that makes up my family creates a large pool of potential visitors, but there’s also a large expanse of land between us and it’s still rare to have a family sighting out here in the summer time fog.
Most of the time I hear about their trips to San Francisco or the Pacific Ocean or Los Angeles well after the fact. This could be due to any number of reasons that are both on and off my radar. My family thinks I’m just a tad eccentric, and living in The Escape Pod doesn’t really create an inviting environment for them, and then there is that glitchy, what-to-do-about lunch or dinner thing, which really isn’t a problem from my perspective – I think I’m the only vegetarian in the whole big bunch.
Last October at a family picnic that I happened to attend in Western Pennsylvania, one of my cousins was recounting her “Out West” road trip experience of seeing Yosemite and few other places she mentioned but I’ve forgotten their names at the moment. I made no secret that day that “I am really tired of hearing about all of these trips to the West Coast after the fact! Really, I am!”
There should be no complaining from my end though – I do have cousins who make almost regular biennial visits for one reason or another – dance performances and medical conferences and such.
So anyway, this very same cousin (the one who went to Yosemite) got in touch last week to tell me that they are on their way! In true road trip fashion they aren’t on a schedule and I have no idea when they will get here.
Now, whether or not I get to see them will be something else entirely. We’ll see how it plays out.