Yes, my family's vacation has come to a close.
We finally got back to our home on Monday afternoon at about 3 p.m., and between the beginning of the trip and the end of it, we drove more than 2,100 miles, give or take.
It was fun, but the moment we got back to our home, we all jumped into work mode and my wife, son and I had plenty to do to return to a semblance of normalcy.
Me ... yes, I had work, and I think I caught up on Tuesday morning, but I had a lot of other things to do, in particular with one of the banks I use.
Right before we left--and on a Sunday, when this particular bank is not open--I found a huge error that this bank made with one of the checks that I deposited into it about a month ago.
My bank account was awry for the past month, and a lot of it had to do with the non-delivery/delivery problems I have had with things that I ordered online.
So I gave it a few weeks to iron itself out, but it never did, and on the day before we left, I found out why.
I use another bank for some of my accounts, and I made out a check for a certain amount to be deposited into the bank in question to help pay our rent.
I do this every month without problem, but this time, the bank in question made a tremendous error--
They deposited about one-tenth of my check's amount into my rent account instead of the amount I wrote on my check ...
And since it was related to rent, you can imagine what a problem that caused for me.
I had plenty of money in the rent account, so I covered the latest rent payment fine, but it threw off the balances of my regular account at one bank and the rent account at the bank in question.
So the first thing I did when we arrived home was to go to the bank in question and sort the whole thing out ...
And they told me that since a month had elapsed, I should simply write a new check, including the difference, and deposit that check into the rent account.
Yes, they did apologize for this error, and yes, the fault was at least partly mine, because I did not check the receipt as thoroughly as I normally do--
But it created a kerfuffle that took me a few hours to rectify.
I had to rewrite my registers to reflect all of this mess--including the returned monies from the orders that I had a problem with--and I am still not 100-percent sure if everything adds up, but I think I did it right.
Then we had the mail ...
I put in to have the mail stopped for the period that we were gone for, but evidently, doing it online was not the way to go, as they never stopped the mail during the period.
Just on a whim, I opened up the mailbox, and lo and behold, the box was brimming with stuff, mostly garbage mail but some important stuff too.
I wonder if they stopped someone else's mail for this period instead of ours ... but stopping the mail online did not do the trick.
Thank goodness newspaper delivery started again on Tuesday morning ...
At least that went right!
I guess doing that over the phone was the right way to go.
Anyway, about the vacation ...
Yes, by the time we got home, we kind of needed a vacation from the vacation.
Lots of driving here, there and everywhere, and I found that to be fun.
Except on Sunday night, when we came closer to home in droves of rain, and that was difficult, to say the least.
But it was good to get away, see a different part of our country, see relatives who just recently moved to these new environs, and enjoy "southern hospitality," so to speak.
This is a huge country, a wonderful country, the best country in the world, and to discover new parts of our country while on vacation was a great thing to do.
And I listened to so much music that I programmed on my little thumb drive--nearly 800 songs during the entirely of the trip--that it kept me going full throttle.
It was a fun couple of days away--even thought I had to work throughout the trip--and it provided some good memories for us.
But now, it is back to the same-old-same-old, and my son went back to work yesterday, I seemingly work 24/7, and the first thing my wife did when we go home is do the drudgery of the wash.
So it is good to be home, but I just wish we could all be on a permanent vacation from chores and duties and work and everything else ...
Which isn't happening anytime soon.
