Long Hollow

 "Be the first to hit the dance floor."

~ Love, Dove

Finding this in my chocolate wrapper today made me laugh. I'm frantically tying up loose ends and scratching to-do's off of lists so I'm ready to hit the road with my Lago girls first thing in the morning. Today is the eve of our 12th Annual Girls' Weekend at the Coast. This time tomorrow I'll be, well, actually I'll be grocery shopping.

Doesn't sound like fun, I know,  but even though grocery shopping is near the top of my 'Things I hate to do" list, this is one shopping trip I enjoy… zipping around the store buying up goodies for the weekend, bumping into my friends around every corner and then trying to load several cartfuls of supplies into our already over-packed vehicles for the final leg of the journey onto the island, giggly with excitement and eager for the sun and sand.

But back to my Dove love note… Some of us will be hitting a dance floor this weekend, and I'm usually the first and last one on there (I don't mind dancing by myself, so it's not contingent upon someone asking me.) But thanks for the encouragement, Dove!

Gosh, I can't believe it's already Wednesday Thursday. Here I am on the verge of another weekend and I haven't even told you about my last one! And there's plenty to tell! (I started this yesterday but had to zip off to return our grandpuppy to her mom. Now I'm frantically trying to finish it!)

I'll start with Saturday morning when Tom and I made several new friends, guys from New York who were traveling across Texas in their rented Dodge Durango. We were on our way out of Austin, headed to Pasadena for a reunion with my old DuPont co-workers, people who (with a few exceptions) I haven't seen in over twenty years.

Tom stopped at a red light. The guys in the Dodge Durango didn't.

I heard – and felt – a CRUNCH in the back of my little Hundai Elantra as my head lurched forward, smacking the visor. Sigh. So much for the reunion and all the people I'd waited months to see. 

Just as one of the guys ran up to Tom's window, I felt something wet on my face…. touching it, my hands came back covered in blood. "My nose is broken!" I dug for napkins in the glove box. 

We pulled off the road into the parking lot of a small church, the Durango close behind us. At least we could still drive it that far! I took a deep breath, prayed and felt peace flow through me. Tom must have done the same thing because both of us got out of the car smiling, especially when we saw that my little car somehow had less damage than the Durango and that my nose wasn't broken after all, just had a bad cut. 

Tom and the other driver exchanged information while another guy scooped some ice for my nose into a cup from a cooler in the Durango and also gave me more napkins. "This would have turned into a brawl in New York," he told me. We all chit-chatted then went our separate ways, elated and relieved. 

A few minutes later we drove through Bastrop, strips of black earth and charred toothpick-looking pines dotting the land on either side of the highway, reminders of the recent wildfires. It's amazing how the fire created a patchwork of black and green.

We had a few hours to visit with my parents then headed to the reunion. That's when it hit me I probably wouldn't recognize anyone – in my mind they all still looked like they did twenty years ago.

But an amazing thing happened… I recognized everyone, especially when I heard their voices. And by the end of the night, everyone looked exactly like I remembered. Even the ones I thought I didn't know had suddenly popped back into place in the pages of my memory.

Opaque layers of time had been peeled away.  

Yeah, I know… when you look at these photos you see a bunch of old farts, but when I look at them, I don't see a single gray hair or wrinkle. Funny, isn't it?

The night went by fast, full of "Remember that time…?" and "What do you do now?"… of smiles and laughter. I was so relieved that everyone seemed to enjoy it as much as I did and voted to do it again soon.

But there were even more reunions this weekend! My nephew, his wife and precious baby girl moved back from Wyoming, which meant gathering around my mother's kitchen table, sharing pizza, gabbing and…

…more photos of baby Haila! Unlike my last visit, this time she was more tolerant of my paparazzi behavior.

She even smiled for me!

 I wish we'd been able to stay longer (in other words, I wish I'd had time to take more pictures of that little girl) but we had to rush to the Austin airport to pick up Daniel, back safe from his world travels.

I intended to post some of his photos on here, but they'll have to wait… I'm late! The coast is calling me!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!