Home Sweet Home, but Still Not Complete

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Geo: 39.0516, -77.4831

We grabbed a taxi and headed for home. It was a huge Grand Marquis sedan, yet the man had trouble fitting all of our bags into the trunk, and K and I felt squished in the backseat. We both remarked how the taxi we'd had in Barcelona -- about 12 hours earlier -- had been a small VW van, yet there had been tons more room. Oh well.

The skies were pitch black and lightning was firing in the distance as we pulled up to the house. We had the bags inside a few minutes before a brief storm erupted. We both did some general unpacking, went through the mail, collectively declared no desire to eat anything more, and then headed for bed. We were both up early the next morning, but nothing too extreme. K was, thankfully, working from home that day, and I got to work early, which helped -- somewhat -- in clearing the backlog from my absence.

It would be three more days before Anna returned home. She and the Rieckhoffs did "not-very-intensive" touristy things in Barcelona after we left, including the famous Gaudi park and a long-anticipated visit to the stadium home to the Barcelona Soccer team. They departed Barcelona on Thursday night, getting into Vienna around 10:00pm. They stayed at the hotel located within the airport, so they had a very short walk and were all able to get a full-night sleep before their morning flight to Washington. I met them all at the airport on Friday afternoon; bringing the Rieckhoffs home and then dropping Anna at the house -- where K was again telecommuting -- before heading back to work for a couple of hours.

I thought Anna might be asleep before I got home, but she was holding up well. A huge number of the tomatoes in our garden had come ripe while we were gone, so I prepared one of Anna's favorite dishes -- a corn, tomato, and cheese pasta dish -- with some of them. It was very nice to again be eating as a complete family in our home. It was somewhat painful to watch, but Anna willed herself to stay awake until 9:00pm, at which time all there of us turned in. I, for one, was already thinking ahead to our next trip.

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