Yes, this entry is off schedule. I just couldn’t manage to post this past Monday.

February 21: After a week of mostly grey skies and rain, the sun was shining when we left my sister-in-law Kathy’s house. I snapped this shot of her crocuses blooming as we were heading out to get in our car and drive home.

 

February 22: Mr. K and I bought ourselves a treat on the way home: a pack of Coca-Cola Starlight. He’d seen it first on our drive out the week before, at a store about an hour and a half from home where we’d stopped to get snacks. We never spotted it in Washington, but on our drive home, there it was in Idaho waiting for us. The can says it’s “space flavored”, which I imagined would be more savory and perhaps a touch metallic than the sweet and fruity drink it is. The packaging sure is pretty, so I’m glad we got it for that alone.

 

February 23: There was some rain and wind while we were gone, which led to some interesting sculpting of the snow outside our back window. Getting back out to ski in it was not a priority, as we had to get ready both to travel to Illinois for Joan’s burial and for the houseguests we were expecting the day after we get back.

 

February 24: I took some things down to store in the studio so they wouldn’t be in our guests’ way when they got here. While down there, I gave myself a pedicure with blue polish because that was Joan’s favorite color (though not for toenail polish; she preferred more classic shades when she got her nails done). Then I drove home, stopping to take a photo of the beautiful view from Turn 7 on the mountain road. It wasn’t until I was in the house that I realized I’d left my tote bag with some things I needed for the trip down in the studio. I thought about leaving them there and just swinging by on our way to the airport two days later, but my mind just wouldn’t quiet down about it, so I drove back and got the bag. That meant I saw the view again, this time with alpenglow.

 

February 25: Packed up for our trip to Illinois for the burial. One of Joan’s requests was to be have her late husband Dale’s ashes placed in her coffin with her, as well as this small urn containing a portion of one of her sister’s ashes. There are rules for traveling with cremains by air that are somewhat convoluted. We ended up paying the funeral home in Washington to remove Dale’s ashes from his not suitable for airport x-ray urn and ship them to the funeral home in Illinois. That was hundreds of dollars added to the thousands for the other services and the coffin, but meant we could fly with the now empty urn, removing the lid first so TSA could look inside and see we weren’t hiding a weapon or bottles of toiletries larger than 100ml in it. Auntie D’s urn was another story. It was sealed shut in a way that opening it would likely involve ruining it (or at least its finish), and we really didn’t want to pay more hundreds of dollars for that anyway. So we decided I’d put in it my carryon and try to just get it through; if stopped, I planned to point out it was too small to hide anything I wouldn’t already be able to carryon outside the urn. We would arrive early enough that if it was refused, I could take it back to the car (the Spokane airport long term parking is close enough to allow this) and we’d drive it to Illinois this summer and break the urn and scatter the ashes or something. I think by this part of the week, we’d gotten the text from our friends who were supposed to arrive the day after we got back that they’d be delayed a few days. I was so relieved when I heard that.

 

February 26: All day was taken up with travel. Setting an alarm so we could complete the two hour drive to the airport with plenty of time. Flying to Chicago via a connection in Minneapolis. Figuring out how to get to the rental cars at O’Hare (they’ve put in a train for that since we last flew in there and rented a car). Checked into our hotel near the airport around 11:30 that night. The good news is Aunty D’s ashes made it through security with not a peep from TSA. I popped the urn into a pair of rolled up hiking socks to cushion it and positioned it so the xray would view it from the top, not the side. Maybe it would have passed regardless of what I did but I felt giddy anyway. The bad news is flying feels more annoying and less safe than it used to be. So many folks have low quality face masks and/or don’t wear the masks they do have correctly. The seats are narrow and the seat pitch is smaller than it used to be. On the first flight, I had to request a seatbelt extender for the first time, despite not being any bigger than I was the last time I flew. I wasn’t ashamed of that, just annoyed. (Spoiler alert: I didn’t need an extender on any of the other three flights this trip, and that inconsistency is also annoying to me.)

 

February 27: We checked out of our hotel, picked up one of our nephews at the airport, and drove the two hours down to central Illinois. We dropped off Dale’s empty urn and Auntie D’s full one at the local funeral home (and Mr. K wrote them a check for their thousands of dollars of services), then stopped by the cemetery to get our bearings on the way to the hotel where everyone was staying. By dinnertime, most of the folks had arrived and most of those went out to dinner together at a small charming family run pizza restaurant that had Joan’s name in its name. I had pecan pie for dessert because it was Joan’s favorite. After dinner, a smaller group gathered at the indoor pool and hot tub. I had enough hard cider drunk out of a paper cup that I forgot my eyeglasses when I went back up to our room and didn’t realize it until sister-in-law Kathy called to see if the ones she’d found were mine. Why yes, they were.

 

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