Wednesday evening, my youngest granddaughter and her father joined me on a road trip to Pennsylvania for the wedding of my oldest granddaughter. We left in the evening on a 14 hour journey to the wilderness of Pennsylvania. Just kidding about the wilderness, but it is a small town.

We left in the evening because I wanted the youngest to only miss two days of school as the wedding was Friday. When she was little, I used to write about her as “Babycakes.” As she got older, I called her “Tilly the Toddler.” I haven’t written about her in years. Once she started school, I would get her on the occasional Saturday and in posts, she would be referred to by her initials.

Now AJ is a Senior in high school and a licensed driver with her own set of wheels, paid for out of her savings. She planned her life years ago and she is on track. She’s worked since she was 14, first working as a clerk for a clothing reseller. Now she works in the deli department of a food co-op.

We spent a few hours sleeping in an old motel off the highway in Ohio. The room was okay. We had to wake the clerk up at 2:30 am to rent the room. AJ and I shared a bed which meant I didn’t sleep well. She’s still a restless sleeper, but at least I didn’t have to hang on to an arm or leg to keep her from falling out of bed like I did when she was a toddler. I probably didn’t sleep well because I was half-remembering the toddler and not the poised young woman.

After we left the motel, the day went downhill. First, we had to drive 25 miles back to the motel because my son forget his shoulder bag. He called the motel and they told him to just get the key back from the deposit box so he could retrieve the bag since no one was there. On my personal ratings scale of 1 to 10, I was able to bump them up to a 7 from a 5.

The 5 was because, while the room was apparently clean, there was some mold in the bathroom and I didn’t feel like I wanted to shower or even wash in the bathroom. They earned the two extra points for letting us wake them a second time.

We slept for about 4 hours and left and as I said above, had to backtrack to get my son’s bag. At this point, I was already fidgety. When I used to drive alone, I usually made the trip straight through and could say exactly when I would be at my daughter’s house.

With the two extra drivers, it actually took longer because every time we switched drivers, my son had to set up his music to play through the car speakers with bluetooth before we could drive off. And he had to do Google Maps, even though I knew the way, having driven solo for many years and had given him verbal directions to the hotel which was right off the exit ramp into the town.

This is an on-going problem between us —he has to double-check any directions or suggestions I give him. I’m not certain if he has some type of learning disability where he has to check spoken instructions against written ones to be able to complete tasks, or what the problem is.

But if there are too many items on a list, he has trouble. He used to complain my lists had too many steps if I broke a task down so he wouldn’t forget to do some of the steps. I’m totally confused about this and have been for most of his 44 years.

Back to the subject, we arrived at the hotel much later than expected and had to rush to get to the rehearsal dinner, such as it was. When we arrived, most of the group were almost done eating, even though we arrived only 5 minutes after the time given to me by my daughter. She had given the same time to the bride’s dad so he was late as well.

We were all glad he could make it, as he has an incurable cancer that will take him much too soon. He did look good for someone we didn’t expect to have live this long. I expect to hear soon that he has passed, but his wish was to be able to walk his daughter down the aisle. And so he did. He was on one side of her and her step-father was on her other side most of the way down the aisle. Her step-father stepped away so her Dad could walk her the rest of the way.

The ceremony and the reception went well. There are now pictures/videos out there of me dancing like a crazy person. Sorry – not. The DJ was playing lively dance music from the “olden days” — the eighties. My dancing music. Yes, I love any music with a fast dance beat. The funny part is I need to use a cane for ordinary walking or I’ll fall down, but can dance non-stop with no balance problems.

The next morning, we gathered for brunch at my daughter’s house and watched the newlyweds open gifts. They received mostly monetary gifts as they would like to save up for a house. I had had a camping tent from their registry sent to my daughter’s house, but I also contributed to the house fund with money in a card, as well as a plaque with their initials and last name and the phrase “Est. 2024.” They liked that.

We drove straight back home by switching off drivers every 4 hours. When we got to my house, I set my my son up on the couch with bedding and sent AJ up to her bed and we all slept. I woke up first, after about 4 hours sleep, and have been up ever since. After we were all up, we unloaded my car and loaded up AJ’s car so she could drive her dad home and then get herself back home on the other side of town.