I took two days off of work last week, and flew from SFO to Kansas City, MO. My dad was there, attending some sort of conference on like, security or something. Anyways, he picked me up from the airport, and we drove to Lawrence Kansas, where we spent some time with my Aunt Bibi, and her son Skip. That was pretty cool -- I haven't seen Skip in like 12 years, or something.
The next day, my dad and I drove to St. Louis, in order to pay a visit to grandma Vi. This was the more "difficult" part of the trip, and actually the reason why I went out of my way to fly to Kansas City. My dad hadn't been down there to see his mom since Beth died, and since Vi has never been supportive of Beth, I didn't want my dad to have to go down there alone. I'm going to gloss over the details, but the point is that Vi is getting older, and as such she is having a hard time living her life the way that she wants to, which makes her difficult to deal with. It's too bad that they don't actually make a "clue stick".
Anyways, my Dad and Vi are like oil and water these days, so we only spent about 4 hours or so in St. Louis, before we were out of there like rockets. I did a lot of driving -- I got us past Bloomington, before the old bean took over. We got to Wheaton at about 1:00 AM, so we were both pretty tired.
The rest of the weekend was good. Visited Mark and Laura on Sunday, and the whole family got together at Uncle Tom's new place on Monday, before I had to fly out of O'Hare. All in all, it was a good trip. I'm glad that I was able to visit Bibi and Skip, and that I was able to back my dad up with the St. Louis leg of the trip.
-Andy.