Vacated

My parents left this morning to take the big boat to England. Is it the Queen Mary? I can't remember. It's the big cruise ship. They're in New York now, caught in traffic, but the cruise people know they're there and on their way (I just used all those there-sounding words together in one sentence!). They sail at 5, I think, this evening, and get to London on Thursday.

I'm a casual traveler at this stage in my life--they have far too many formal dinners awaiting them in the coming week for my taste (although the menus looked good...). I like a backpack and hiking boots and finding my way, although I do also like clean sheets when I find my way there.

They'll have a good time, though, and I'm glad--they've been planning this for a year now. But it also makes me look at the state of things here in Chez Wissinger and know it will be at least a year, probably two, before we take off to anywhere more interesting than my in-laws or to (our favorite) Rock Eddy. Leo is not at a good travel age. He doesn't understand why he's still in the carseat or why he should be quite and so forth. So it would be good to wait.

But I hate waiting.

My brother-in-law Pete and his girlfriend (soon to be wife) Kaylen are busy planning the honeymoon right now, too, which they're taking in San Francisco and parts nearby. Basically, a slightly tweaked version of my own honeymoon with Mike. Sigh. We were there in 1996 and 2006 and I suppose we'll go back in 2016 as well. But that seems so far away. Talking to her over email about Big Sur and Yosemite and San Francisco (which she knows better than I do) just makes me remember that my time will come again. Leo will get big enough to travel well and Maeve has her list of places to go (which are different from my list, though) and soon enough I'll be sitting here at the computer with hot chocolate in hand, on a cozy February night, looking around the internet for the perfect spot to find those clean sheets in the middle of Wyoming or Nevada or Vermont and making my plan.

But for now, I have to go pick up my parents' car at the airport and continue with the basement cleaning. Irish dance and school meetings and piano and dinner in the crock pot. Because that's not so bad either.