When I realized that my mom had booked tickets for 6:45AM OMG WHY I decided it would probably be best to stay at her house before the flight so that I could sleep in as late as humanly possible since her place is only a few miles from the airport. Then she came in at 3:00AM to do WORK STUFF AT THREE AM OMG WHY. So I got about an hour of sleep.
As soon as we landed in Las Vegas people’s true nature shined. Mom immediately found a Brighton store and proceeded to build and buy herself a new charm bracelet. Cassidy immediately sought out a food place she had never eaten to try something new. It was chili cheese fries from Nathan’s Hot Dogs. At 8:00AM. I found the closest Wheel of Fortune slot machine and proceeded to lose an amount of money I will not disclose because Ben’s brain might explode.
Once everybody had shopped, been fed and lost the appropriate amount of money we sat at our gate and Cassidy and mom requested that I French braid their hair so I did that. While I was braiding, my mom and Cassidy started to fight about who should get to sit by the window because we all wanted to see the country on the Vegas to Pittsburgh leg of the trip. Eventually we all decided we would take turns so Cassidy got this leg, sat by the window and immediately proceeded to sleep the entire four hour flight.
Mom and I dealt with this travesty and not being able to see the country by drinking rum and cokes an eating the hummus I grabbed right before boarding.
I did manage to grab the middle seat when we were landing so I got to see all the GREEN. This is my favorite part of the flight back east. When you land pretty much anywhere in California it’s just concrete jungle for miles and miles but back east it’s all nature and beautiful and trees and GREEN.
Pennsylvania is very proud of their history so I took a very serious picture with the founder of our country.
My grandpa David is an awesomely unique dude and when we got into his van when he picked us up there were two GPS units and a message he’d printed out taped to the glove box.
I wish I could say that I had more pictures of this day but I was pretty exhausted and spent the entire trip to my aunt’s house with my face glued to the window just taking in all the sights and memories that would flood back when I recognized things. Then we got to eat an amazing dinner my aunt made us while we visited and caught up and laughed and I never even thought to pick up my phone or take a picture of my food. It was great.
It was really crazy to be back in the house I lived in every summer. It was different but SO much the same. The same smells, the same sounds and that feeling of it being my second home was pretty much immediate. I love it there. I went to bed that night listening to the crickets chirping and the wind blowing and the sounds I remember falling asleep to all those summer nights and fell into the most awesome kind of deep sleep.