On The Road Again

Ever since I was about 5 years old, my family has been making annual pilgrimages to Cape Cod for a week in the summer. My mom's side of the family is from there, so we have a big 'ol reunion every year. It's a blast. One year, when my sister and I were still living at home in the summers, during our college years, we had to take two cars because my Dad had to leave halfway through the week to go to work. My parents were in one car, my sister and I were in the other. It was the mobile equivalent of the "kids' table" at Thanksgiving dinner. That trip remains to this day one of the best in my memory.

One thing that made it especially memorable was our method of communication between the two cars. My Dad had the brilliant idea to purchase a set of walkie-talkies. They were clearly intended to be nothing more than toys, as they were both bright yellow plastic, one with a red knob on the end of the antenna, the other with a yellow one. They didn't work unless the cars were very close to each other, and to conserve battery life, we left them switched off until we needed to communicate. The signal to turn your walkie-talkie on was someone from the other car waving their walkie-talkie out the window. It was nothing short of fantastic.

Fast forward holy crap is it really something like 20 years- and Flipper (@lct29) The Mayor and GoalieHusband and I are on our way up to a tournament in Massachusetts.  Flipper and The Mayor are in one car, and GoalieHusband and I are following behind. Cell phones have eliminated the need for ridiculous walkie-talkie displays out the car windows, but the content of the messages wasn't much more mature. In response to an "Are we there yet????" text, The Mayor proceeded to text us every two miles to tell us how many more miles of the trip were yet to be traveled. There were also several Beavis & Butthead-esque exchanges, as well as lots of speculation as to where exactly my hands were, if they weren't both on the steering wheel.

I'm not sure I believe in coincidences, but let's just pretend for a moment- by coincidence, my sister happened to call just as we were heading up I-495. I told her where we were, and that I'd been thinking about that trip we made up to the Cape so many years ago. She laughed and said "Oh, the time we were rocking out in the car the entire time?" Yep. That was the other thing that made it so memorable. A complete performance of Bohemian Rhapsody at as high a decibel level as that 1995 Neon would allow.

So here we are. Relaxing for a bit before heading over to the rink for our first game, which is at 9:40. We're aiming to get there early, so we have time to check in, and oggle all the gift baskets available for "auction". (It's a tricky-tray type thing.) I just remembered that last year there were several Bruins baskets. One of them had several Tuukka-signed items in it. I bought tickets for it, but didn't win. If there is anything even remotely Tuukka-associated this year, I'm buying butt-loads of tickets for it. That puppy will be MINE.

Time to log off for now... lines are being arranged, and I have to bring my jersey in from the balcony over the pool where I hung it the minute we got here.

GO CATS!!!