The "Local Wave"

Sunday after church I packed up the kids and started the the hour-and-a-half drive to my parents' house. Chad was scheduled to work 10-hour shifts to cover the Memorial Day crowds at Roosevelt Lake, so I decided to skip out on temporary single-mom experience. It's always so nice and relaxing to visit my parents. Bree absolutely LOVES her "Gamma and Papa." And my sister Danelle's old room is a Disney wonderland complete with Pooh's 100-Acre Wood wall murals, piles of stuffed characters, a hug bin of small plastic figurines, and a plethora of Disney DVDs. Bree spends most of her time in that room, coming out for the occasional bite of food or a ride on "Papa's Tractor."

Well, on the drive there I was marvelling about several things. I chuckled as I passed a car-full of old folks standing next to a large saguaro cactus to get their picture taken in Mammoth. I suppose a saguaro is quite a sight if you don't see it every day. And then as I got nearer to my parents' house I wondered, "Who in their right mind would live here? Whose brilliant idea was it to stake claim here?" Oh, yeah, that was my great-grandfather. And the family just stuck around. My mom escaped for about 25 years, but she's back there again. Well, I guess it is sort of pretty. The 'river' that runs under ground makes those dead-looking mesquite trees miraculously come to life every spring. I also wondered how long it will take for the I-10 Bypass highway to be built, providing some much-needed pavement to the road to my parent's house (it's about a 20-minute drive on a rough dirt road).
What makes me smile, though, is the way all the locals on that dirt road wave to each other as they pass. It reminds me of when I was a teenager and my friend Mackenzie invited me to Lopez Island (one of the San Juan Islands in Washington's Puget Sound). Mackenzie informed us that everyone on the island waves when they pass one another--so you better wave or else they'll think you're a tourist. (I was tickled that this custom was mentioned by Wikipedia!). So as I drove to my parent's, I waved to the other cars. Some of them waved too, and I knew they were locals. The cars that didn't wave were suspiciously clean, a non-local dead giveaway.
So, even though I'm technically not a local, I did live out there for like 7 months. So I figure that gives me the right to participate in the "Local Wave."