The only sound until just now was the click of Charlie’s nails going back and forth as he roamed between rooms here in the cottage. It’s time for the annual sibling retreat and this time we are in Franklin, TN. After 9 hours of flying in an airplane seat with a buttnumbing intensity of 10, we arrived in Chicago to spend the night with Rupert and Meredith (in their new house) before heading down to the outskirts of Nashville yesterday.

We made pretty good time. I drove from Chicago down to Paducah, KY. At that point, after a pit stop at the Marathon truck stop, Rupert and I switched. What makes these roadtrips different than when we were kids is that we are now allowed to buy our own snacks and as many of them as we want. 😉

Cedric and Charlie showed up about 30 minutes after we got here and as fitting, pizza was ordered and Charlie got the benefit of the crusts. It’s good to know that we uphold family traditions.

We haven’t left the house yet for the day. Mostly because Rupert is still working and at the moment everyone else is sitting in the living room, quietly doing their own thing. You would almost think this was some sort of flexwork environment except none of us have hipster beards and the coffee comes in big mugs and has little caffeine!

Cedric and Charlie leave again tomorrow morning. We will be here through Sunday. The midterm elections happened yesterday without any bizarre incidents (except perhaps the results in some races). I think our biggest goal for the time here is to catch up, tell jokes, drink beer and boxed wine and just be family.