We got up early saturday morning and grandma made us a farewell breakfast before we got on the road. Tay drove us down to Grandma Loretta's an hour or so away.
It was good to see Grandma Loretta too. We plopped on the couch and visited awhile when we arrived, before she served us up some BBQ she'd picked up in town for lunch. After lunch, we opened presents. Josh and Andera gifted us a really sweet Engagement ornament.
Grandma is selling her house, so a lot of the furniture is already gone. There were some new carpeting, and the dining room finally was empty save for the dining table. That room, more than any, saw the biggest changes since I first remember coming to the house.
My earliest memories there, the room was dark and vaguely smokey, dominated by a massive pool table, and with a mysterious and clanking Japanese pachinko machine on the wall.
Grandma drove us over to the apartment she is renting, in a nearby senior housing community, and showed us around. Afterwards, we went to the post office to mail our thank you cards to Josh and Andera (Tay suggested it), before we headed over to Braum's for cherry limeades. While at Braum's, Tay raised the possibility of going to the Casino, and so, why not? we drove over to the nearby Riverwind casino.
We all started with $20. Grandma hit the slots while Tay and I headed over to the $5 blackjack tables. It's a little fun, but not really my thing. I guess because I am not constantly equating the chips in my hand to what they represent, its just a kind of token economy. And the game moves so fast, I dont really feel comfortable counting my chips between hands. The bullshit aspect is the 50 cent ante that you are required to play, a kind of per-hand fee. This strikes me as entirely bullshit since the casino is going to take your money regardless though the action of gambling. At a $5 table, you lose the equivalent of one hand every ten hands. Anyway, my fortune waxed and waned a bit, but at the end of 30 minutes, I was busted, Tay was $30 up, and grandma struck it at $150. I guess I am a good luck charm to everyone else. Grandma bought us a round at the bar, "Chips n' Ales" which was exactly how it sounds, but with more sports bar rolled into it.
The next morning, grandma rolled out a midwestern country breakfast of scrambled eggs, biscuits, gravy, and sausage. I miss these breakfasts a lot. Well-stuffed, we loaded up the car again and hit the road to Uncle Jeff's. He was still sleeping and Karsten was gone dropping off a friend, so its a sleepy aunt Ashley who met us and we quickly loaded up the SUV with the table and were on our way.
The weather was really good the entire trip. It was smooth driving up to St. Louis, listening to Tay's NPR podcasts, talking a bit, taking the occasional gas and pee break. We stopped in St. Louis for dinner at Sugarfire, a local chain not far from where I used to live. I got a brisket pieces and spicy sausage sandwich with pickles and BBQ sauce and tay got a platter. It was good, but not exceptional, not nearly the same caliber of BBQ as bogarts nor the gold standard Pappy's.
I finished the run from St.Louis back to Indy. Along the way, it began to snow lightly, and it was really only one stretch where we were driving through a snow flurry. We finally got back to Tay's place around 11pm, making pretty good time actually, and unloaded the SUV and put the table in place in the kitchen. It's going to triple his counter space.
The box of stuff he got from dad was a mix ranging from interesting objects worthy of hauling around (Balinese masks) to trash (Worst Psychotic Murderers, and Russian language workbooks). There was, inexplicably, an egg container for the refrigerator.
I finished my repacking and sorting (all the hard drives go into carry-on) and slept fitfully. If there has been one constant this trip, it has been low quality of sleep, and mostly filled with bad dreams.
In the morning, I had to say goodbye to my brother, and took the SUV back to the rental agency at the airport after gassing it up. Only turned the wrong way down a one way major street once.
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