Comfort

After four days in rather primitive conditions (my sister's lake house/cabin), rather crowded conditions (9 people), rather ... okay, the food was great (my brother's cooking), we're in a hotel. I walked into the room last night at 11p, sunburned (see below) and exhausted (ditto), took one look at the bed piled high with pillows and the sink counter piled high with shampoo and lotion (we got a suite), and I almost fainted from happiness. Rough-and-ready Bunny, I'm not.

I had a blast, though. The whole trip was fabulous, but our time at the lake was amazing. Thrown together by lack of space, a family could implode. Ours got closer. We had no TV, no internet to speak of (my brother did have his remote access card but only on his work laptop) - we didn't even play the radio. We talked. And played games. Now, admittedly, they talked into the wee hours, which meant I didn't sleep as much as I'm used to doing, but even that worked out in the end. I can honestly say that I love my family - with the authority of recent testing.

I got some antique store hunting in (couple of nice gold and maybe-gold pieces), but my favorite time was fossil hunting. This is Texas. We found a huge clam-like fossil (pictures when I'm not on the road) that I couldn't have brought with me without a rock saw and a crane, but then I seached the surrounding area and found some nice corals, anemone-like critters, and a few other things I can't identify. It was fun. I'm sunburned.

More stories later, definitely pictures later, but I had to sketch it out before we raced out of town. Onward and outward, to the next state, the next antique mall, the next time zone, and the next long conversation with the Big Lug.

Funny. I just realized we haven't even turned on the radio in the car, not once. Just him and me for hours at a stretch, talking or silent, holding hands or staring at the passing scenery, reading maps or tiffing about some silly thing or another. Just being, just together.

That's not just comfort; it's heaven.