Just got back from a second road trip in as many months. This time it was just my son and me. Drove from Southern California up to the coast of Washington state, where my wife’s family is from. Visited a couple of folks on the way up, including dropping off a chair with one of my wife’s cousins.
The chair has a long history with that family. It started out as “grandpa’s” chair. I’m using relationships from my wife’s perspective here. It was her grandfather’s. And my wife had many childhood memories and stories about sitting with grandpa in the chair.
After both both grandparents passed away, the house (and chair) went to one of my wife’s aunts. That is where the latest recipient of the chair comes in. He is a generation below my wife. (His mother is my wife’s first cousin). Anyway he remembers his grandfather in the chair - he’s just a bit too young to have known his great grandfather. He is absolutely thrilled to have the chair. And I hope that his grandchildren (he’s already got a couple) will likewise remember him fondly in the chair.
Some where in between the aunt and us having the chair, my wife’s brother came into possession of it. How exactly that happened, I have no idea. But my brother in law had similar fond memories of his grandfather in the chair. While in his possession, he had the chair restored. The chair had leather seating that had mostly fallen apart. So it looked much better restored. When he died, my wife made sure to get the chair. And now that she’s gone, I really wanted to get it back into the proper family. And that’s done.
As to the rest of the trip, we visited with different friends and family along the way. I left a few of my wife’s ashes in the home town there in Washington. She always liked to talk about going fishing with her grandpa. So one of the fishin’ lakes seemed like a good spot for her. Definitely a bittersweet part of the trip, visiting her family without her. But a nice trip, and always good to visit with her family.
The last stop was in San Francisco to catch the Dodgers playing the Giants. I’d never been to that stadium, nor had my son. We managed to navigate the public transit system just fine to get from the east bay where we stayed to the ball park downtown. As an LA area native, public transit is a strange concept to me. But having tried it, there really seems to be something to it. 
It’s also nice to get away from the daily routines and see the world again. My wife hadn’t been able to travel in her last couple of years. I didn’t realize how much I missed that until we got out again.
There will definitely be more such trips in the future. My son is a great travel partner. Perhaps a little too good. He just wants to drive a bit too much. There need to be some stops to see things along the way. I’ll get him trained up in that again.
–Peter
