The horizon is aflame with every colour of the rainbow, from deep ruby red to indigo purple.  Above us the stars are waving good morning.  Below us is a black ocean of corn fields, not yet awake to the day.  It’s 6:29 a.m. at 10,000 feet.  We’re flying over Indiana.

It’s been a good couple of days with Tony’s grandmas in Wisconsin.  How many 38 year olds still have both grandmothers?  How many kids still have three great grandmothers by the time they’re teenagers?  We’re abundantly blessed with health and longevity on both sides of the family and this week we were reminded of the real gift that it is.

I gain five pounds every time we visit Grandma Parker.  The woman can cook.  I guess she’s had plenty of practice in her ninety-some years: raising two girls, two grandchildren, and cooking for school kids for a career.  She never lets us help, even though we offer, and every meal is a three course affair (at least).

I admire her much.  She’s lived through more in her lifetime than I can fathom and she is the most steadfast woman I know.  She greets every day with a smile.  She works hard, canning, freezing, juicing, gardening, and then she volunteers at the church, mission organizations, and more.  I told her, while I was giving her a manicure yesterday (my pumpkin orange nail polish) that when I grow up, I want to be her.

We ate.  We played cards.  She played bingo and assembled puzzles with the kids.  We laughed a lot.  Did I mention that we ate?

Grandma Miller is not quite as spry, but she’s doing the best she can with what she’s got.  Two hours was about all she could muster for us yesterday, but a precious two hours it was.  She masks her inability to hear with a constant stream of discombobulated conversation.  She remembered who we were… mostly.  She coloured with Ezra and praised Hannah’s fiddle music highly.  She can’t understand why we’re still traveling and why we won’t settle down, but she remembered exactly where we were going and was adamant that we, “Go and have fun while we can.”  Sage advice from someone born in the 1920’s.

We were a little teary when we hugged her good-bye.  We always worry when we take off for months that one of the grandmas will set off on her own great adventure before we return.  Grandma Miller is the most frail.

We ate dinner at Giordano’s Pizza last night.  The taste of Chicago to us, and the thing we miss most about having lived here.  Grandma & Grandpa’s Great (Tony’s parents) didn’t love it.  They’re partial to their own brand of pie.  We, however, were in heaven.

The final pack went pretty well.  Grandma’s eyes were big when she saw our huge pile in the middle of the hotel room.  Tony grumbled about “not getting it all in,” as he always does.  I worked like a mouse tucking yarn into every spare corner of Ezra’s pack, and hiding computer cords in secret zip pockets of our new backpacks.  We got it all in.

3:15 a.m. came early and Grandpa’s Great, a true prince among Grandpas, schlepped out into the predawn darkness to deliver us to the airport before anyone with sense was awake.

Elisha, who can always be trusted to ask the obvious question, wondered aloud, “Why do we need to get here two hours early when the check-in guys aren’t even here yet?”  Why indeed.

The sky is lightening to a deep mauve above us as our orbit hurtles Indiana toward the sun.  The Wabash river is a silvery gray ribbon below us.  Ezra is asking ridiculous questions.  I’m sipping tomatoe juice.

We are underway.