Luke’s Notebook

I wanted to make sure to wrap up the posts about the family trip, as 2009 is nearly over and I don’t want to be too far behind!

I left off on Week Two, where Mark and I were home covering some work.  At the beginning of Week Three, Mark and I drove north towards Chicago as the rest of the family left the home in UP, Michigan, to drive through the mainland of Michigan.  As they were driving southeast through Michigan, John drove due south towards Chicago, and the three of us met up — at Six Flags!

Conveniently, Six Flags was almost the precise halfway point between our home and the vacation house in Michigan.  So the three of us met up in the Six Flags parking lot, spent a few hours on some of the rides there — specifically, the Raging Bull, the American Eagle, King Chaos, and the Iron Wolf.

After a few hours at Six Flags, we all drove over to the nearby Golden Corral in Gurnee and ate supper.  When finished, Mark and I said farewell to John, and we drove east towards Michigan, while John continued south in order to get home.

Mark and I met up with the family late that night, and we all stayed in Milan, Michigan, just outside of Ann Arbor.  The next day, we caravanned up to Penn Yan, New York, which was where we would stay the rest of the week.

While in Penn Yan, we did some canoeing, some biking, and worked a lot on a few long jobs that we had to take care of.  At the end of Week Three, Mark and I would hit the road again, while the rest of the family would drive over to the Gettysburg, Pennyslvania, area.

On our way home, Mark and I decided to swing by Pittsburgh.  We had never been there, so we decided to take the small detour in order to drive through it.  I’m glad we did, too!  It’s a very nice-looking town, and I especially liked the Pirates’ ballpark, PNC Park, which rests on the riverfront.  Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to stop in Pittsburgh, but it was nice to drive through it and get a very brief tour.

We arrived home in the early-morning hours of Saturday, November 7th.  Later that day, I had a wedding ceremony/reception to film for a client of ours.

John was still home at this time, and the three of us spent the next week taking care of business-related duties.  Towards the end of Week Four, though, John and I drove back up to Penn Yan, New York (by way of Bellville, Ohio, where we stayed a night), and rejoined the family for what would be the final week of the trip for everybody.  Mark stayed back home to man the business.

Everybody left the house on Keuka Lake in New York on Thursday morning, November 19.  Most of the family headed home, while Jude and I drove over to nearby Buffalo, as we just happened to have some deposition work come in for a couple of days over there.  We spent all day Thursday working, and after pulling a near-all-nighter (working on transcripts until 3:00 AM or so), we got to sleep.  We woke up around 11:30 in the morning, checked out of the hotel, and headed for home.

We finally pulled into our driveway early on Saturday, November 21st.  Finally, everybody was home from the trip, from all different directions, safe and sound.

It was a very busy trip!  Lots of work, but lots of fun also.  It was a relief to get back home, to sleep in my bed, and to get back to everyday duties.

We had many different surprises while on the trip.  Plenty of unexpected work, which is always a good thing, but it had left us scrambling to cover things.  Thankfully, we managed.  We also saw on multiple occasions how impeccable God’s timing is, in very practical ways.  It’s almost like He was giving us a thumbs-up for taking the trip.

It really was an amazing experience.  To be honest, I was thrilled to be back home, as things are so much simpler when you are in your own house.  Plus, I needed to get away from the tempting junk food that was so easily accessible during the trip.  Extra snacks minus regular workouts equals a bad result!  So it was nice to get back to eating better and getting back in the habit of working out.

The 2009 Family Trip is definitely one that will be very memorable, for many different reasons!  It’s funny how each trip has its own distinct flavor.  You can never predict what the story of a trip will be beforehand.  It makes things really exciting, because you just never quite know what to expect.

Week Number Two of the trip was pretty interesting!

Mark and I left the home in Michigan early Sunday morning (October 18th), and we started south.  This trip home was very memorable for a few reasons.  One, we drove through Green Bay, Wisconsin, and decided to hop off the highway in order to drive past Lambeau Field, home of the Packers.

It was really awesome to see Lambeau!  Green Bay is not very large, and we didn’t even see anything that looked like a city — that is, anything of substance — so it is quite a bit different than most other professional sports stadiums.

We also saw thousands of people tailgating all around the stadium, as we were  there a couple hours prior to kickoff.  In addition to the tailgaters, we drove by a nearby neighborhood, where dozens of people were offering parking in their driveways or on their lawns!  Some houses had up to 10 or 20 cars packed into a front (or back) yard.  It was really funny to see!  I guess it’s a good idea, really.  Brings in a little bit of extra money on game days for the homeowners.

As we continued south, we drove through Milwaukee, and ended up stopping at Six Flags Great America just north of Chicago, in Gurnee, Illinois.  We spent a few hours there, although we only managed to get on two rides during that time, as it was pretty crowded.  We did fit in two of the best roller coasters, though — Superman and the Raging Bull.

The rest of the drive home was pretty uneventful.  To help pass the time, Mark and I listened to an audio book, “The Red House Mystery” by A. A. Milne.  It was actually very, very good, and it helped pass many of the hours on the road.

We arrived back home a couple hours after midnight on Monday the 19th.  On Monday, Mark had an early-morning deposition in St. Louis.  I spent most of the day taking care of assorted business-related tasks.

The rest of the week was pretty much a blur, as Mark and I both had an abnormally-large amount of work.  Mark had eight depositions to report, and I had six video depos that week.  That’s pretty much unheard of!  Also in that week back home, we played in a softball game, and had dinner with both sets of grandparents on two different nights.

On Sunday the 25th, we were back on the road, driving northward in order to rejoin the family.

Stay tuned for Week Three!