Highway 66...an education

The Great Smoky Mountain Adventure is over and as a souvenir I brought home a lovely cold complete with scratchy throat, irritating cough and runny nose. It was a small price to pay for such a fun four days. I’m afraid to step on the scales this morning since I’m sure that I brought back more than merely the sniffles. But, that’s why God created American Family Fitness. When I am 80, infirm and broke, I hope that my children will remember all of these fun trips when pondering the question, “Where did all of Dad’s money go??”

Previous blogs have detailed the great fun we had so I won’t repeat them here. However, there was one major downer to the whole Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg experience. Highway 66. This is the major artery that leads you to the area off of Interstate 40. Whether by accident or design, it seems to be the only way to enter, sort of like the Pearly Gates. Actually it’s more like the way that department stores set up their floor plans, forcing you to meander through rows of high profit margin junk before you can find the package of underwear you’re looking for. Well, highway 66 is a 20 mile stretch of high profit margin junk that you must endure before you are rewarded with your cabin. This 20 miles takes roughly one hour and fifteen minutes to traverse. That’s right, in the time it takes for you to drive from Richmond to DC, the visitor is treated to 38 pancake joints, a dozen go-cart tracks, 16 tattoo parlors, enough doughnut shops to give all of China a sugar high, the “largest Christmas shop in the south,” three water parks, five helicopter ride pads, two Elvis museums, three psychic readers, and a giant remake of Mount Rushmore replacing the Presidents with the four icons of Dixie…John Wayne, Elvis, Marilyn Monroe and Conway Twitty.

Highway 66 is an education. You want to learn about America? Forget the Smithsonian, forget National Parks. Just take Highway 66 from Interstate 40 to Wears Valley Road and soak it all in. No tolls, lots of waiting!

Zip Lining with Snoop and Opie

Having a wonderful time here in the Smoky Mountains doing all the stuff that I could never do back home. That’s always my goal on any vacation. I mean, why would anyone go to Hawaii and eat dinner at Shoneys? So, when I am in Pigeon Forge I want to do Pigeon Forge stuff like go zip-lining.

I saw a sign on one of the winding roads leading up here that advertised something called “Zip-Line Adventures” with the provocative invitation to “zip-line through history.” Turns out that the zip-lining through history part was bogus since the original owner with the big plans to build giant replicas of iconic images of American history in the valleys below the lines had moved on from the enterprise and the current owners had never bothered to change the road signs. It’s this type of bracing honesty that I find so refreshing down here. Imagine how differently we would all feel about government if they would just admit that they are incompetent every now and then instead of blaming every screw up on a lack of proper funding. But, I digress…

The best part of our zip-lining adventure was the ride in the back of the pickup truck to the top of the mountain. This brought back a flood of memories from my childhood when grownups were fond of throwing gaggles of middle schoolers in the backs of pickup trucks with nary a seat belt in sight. Only this particular ride was even more harrowing since the “road” was nothing more than an oversized foot path and the driver of our vehicle was named “Snoop” and drove like someone who had made this drive so many times he could do it in his sleep, which is to say…way too fast!

Once at the top we found the company headquarters which used to belong to a 90 year old woman who lived alone until her children insisted that maybe she might be too old to make the trip into town every day. Now the place looked like a perfectly beautiful home that had been transformed into a crack house/hostel that doubled as a meth lab. All previous customers had been allowed to inscribe their names to every flat surface of the place for posterity with permanent markers which gave the place a certain post-apocalyptic look.

Jon was having none of it. He opted out of participation despite the presence of a six year old child in full harness. It would be just Patrick and me. If Jon lives to be 100, I will probably never let him forget it.

The aforementioned Snoop and his assistant…wait for it…Opie, started with a safety demonstration which included the wonderfully reassuring phrase, “We have an 82% survival rate!” It was unclear whether this statistic included the truck ride up and down the mountain, but that’s a quibble I suppose.

I had paid for a four line trip, since the seven line super package would have taken too long and I had plans to do other dangerous stuff on this day and couldn’t spend all afternoon with Snoop and Opie. Here are some pictures and a video of our adventure.

It was all great fun!

Birkenstock and Elvis

When Pam and I became empty nesters permanently back in July, I immediately began to plot and scheme for ways to stay close to our children. Yes, I did say children, because although both of them are fully grown adults, they will always be our children. The fact that I am no longer able to use them to help lower my tax burden does not diminish their value. The fact that I no longer am responsible for their care and feeding, does not mean that I no longer wish to ever feed them again. I have invested too much time and money in the two of them to simply let them waltz away to Columbia, South Carolina and Nashville, Tennessee without so much as a whimper of protest.

So, I pulled out a map of the United States and drew a circle around our three cities, then tried to find a spot on the map that was equidistant for all of us. The closest point of reasonable interest happened to be the Pigeon Forge area of Tennessee, in the midst of the Great Smoky Mountains, aka…Hillbilly Vegas. So, I got online and began the search for a cabin to rent and an agreeable long weekend. When I extended the invitation, both of them jumped at the chance to get away and spend some of Dad’s money.

Pam and I arrived around 4 or so in the afternoon and instantly fell head over heels for this place. For one thing, it was clean as a pin and decorated beautifully. But the view off of the three decks from each floor is a stunning panorama that stretches out for miles. The leaves are near their peak. We are at a high elevation so we can see the tops of shining yellow and bright fiery orange trees far below us. Once the sun set the vast valley lit up in a sea of lights stretching to the end of the horizon. Now, we just have to wait for the kids to arrive and hope that A. they can find this place at night, and B. they don’t drive off a cliff in the process.

Earlier this evening Pam and I came down off this mountain to get something to eat in Pigeon Forge and then pick up some groceries for the weekend. We chose a place called “No Way Jose’s” Mexican Cantina, only because the place next door that claimed to serve the “best ribs in America” had a thirty minute wait.  When we were preparing to leave No Way Jose’s, a family of 15 waddled past us on their way to a table in the back, all 15 of whom tipped the scales at a minimum of 250 pounds. None of them were much taller than Pam. This is when I knew that I wasn’t in Short Pump anymore.

This being my third trip to the area, I have been looking forward to some major league people watching in perhaps the best spot in America for such a purpose. You see it all here. For example, when Pam and I were pulling out of the No Way Jose’s parking lot we noticed a juxtaposition of two businesses that I feel certain one would never find anywhere else on the planet. There was a Birkenstock store right next to an Elvis Museum. ‘Murika.

Ready By Christmas

With the invaluable assistance of the devoted Denise Roy, I am putting the finishing touches on a book about death and dying, specifically my Mother’s death and the last two years of my Father’s life. It sounds positively dreadful when stated this way, but it really isn’t. It’s just the story of a family trying desperately to honor their parents amidst great loss and the often humiliating experience of caring for a dying Father. Most of the “story” is simply my unfiltered response to it all as it was happening…on this blog.

Compiling it all has meant living it over again in slow motion. As I have read and reread each post I have felt it all again, the frustration, the sadness, the anger and even the pride that comes with the realization of just how noble and dignified it all was, despite many missteps.

I’m hoping to have it all done and ready by Christmas. I will self-publish. There will be a physical paperback version in limited quantities, but mostly it will be a digital book available in e-book form.

Mostly, this project is intended as a tribute to my parents and my brother, sisters, nieces and nephews and a wide assortment of friends who were instrumental in insuring that my Dad’s final year was filled with dignity instead of despair. Also, the thought occurred to me that the record of our experiences might be of value to someone out there who might be going through the same journey.

There is still much to do. For one thing, I need to come up with a title, cover art…those sorts of things. Writing is the easy part, everything else is a mine field.

The Great Ant Debacle

I love my Sunday afternoon naps. I go to church, then go out to lunch somewhere with some friends, then climb into my lazy boy with the game on in the background, and I’m out for two hours. It’s called the day of rest for a reason, after all.

Well, there I was yesterday, enjoying my siesta when I was suddenly and quite rudely disturbed by my beautiful but frantic wife. There she was standing over me with a very forced smile on her face, the kind that people get when they are trying to remain calm. Her eyes were another matter. They were practically screaming, “Oh my God, what the heck??!!”

Since she had just roused me from a deep and satisfying sleep, I didn’t hear much of what she said at first, but I did manage to pick up three words…Lucy, digging…ants.

The next thing I remember was running down stairs to find my puppy outside on the deck looking positively thrilled with herself. Apparently, Pam had let her out into the backyard where she was having a grand time digging a massive crater on the back side of the oak tree in the middle of our yard. Unfortunately, she had disturbed a rather large ant colony with her excavations several battalions of which had swarmed up her legs and tail and were now racing helter skelter all over her perfect pink puppy belly. It was my job to fix it. The unspoken accusation was thick in the air…You wanted a puppy, you got your puppy!

In a flash I grabbed Lucy and raced upstairs and threw her in the shower. She was positively giddy and seemed unfazed by the presence of several hundred ants crawling all over her. It was all such great fun! And to top it all off, now Daddy and her were going to rough house, and water was involved!!

Ants began to drop off of her in bunches. There must have been a thousand of them imbedded in her thick tail. It reminded me of what our southern border must look like when the border patrol takes a coffee break. It took me nearly thirty minutes of sustained scrubbing and rinsing, scrubbing and rinsing until she was finally free of them. But this task was only the beginning. What was I going to do to keep her from going right back out there and doing it again?

I had been waiting for the weather to clear all weekend so I could cut the grass and prepare the yard for the aeration and seeding guy to come this week. Although it was still misting rain, I could wait no longer. While I was raking up the pine needles, it came to me. I would use Lucy’s skittishness against her. I would take the seven black garbage bags full of yard debris over by the fence and place them around the base of the two big trees. Lucy is mortally afraid of large black things and has shown a particular aversion to going anywhere near those bags. Two hours later the yard work was done and both trees were surrounded by menacing black plastic monsters.

The first time I let her out into her back yard she came to a screeching halt at the top of the deck steps. The fur on her back immediately rose up in alarm. It took her five minutes to summon the courage to venture down the steps. Then she walked gingerly towards the tree. Then I heard her let out a low growl, then a couple of furtive barks. Finally, she pranced away over to her pooping grounds at the far end of the yard where she discovered yet another black bag patrol surrounding a second tree. At this point the barking became full throated. She was not a happy dog.

This morning, I’m watching her walk around carefully out there, sniffing mightily, looking totally baffled by what has turned out to be my superior strategy.

Yes, I am feeling quite cocky. At least until the next catastrophe befalls us. Being a puppy parent isn’t for wimps, people.

Battle Scars

Last night I watched the Kansas City Royals whip the Baltimore Orioles to go up 2-0 in their best of seven series. At roughly the same time that this was happening, the two SEC teams from the state of Mississippi were busy beating the snot out of their opponents, causing me to wonder what could possibly be next. Are the Cleveland Browns about to embark on a ten game winning streak?

While all of this was happening, Lucy and I were furiously engaged in a game we like to call, “Find Daddy’s Face,” whereby I lay on the floor face down trying to cover my entire head with my arms while Lucy searches for a weakness in my defenses with her probing wet nose and powerful paws. Molly was especially gifted at this game, and Lucy is equally enthusiastic, and never fails to burst through and end the game in a flurry of wild puppy kisses to the face. Only, somehow along the way one of her ginormous paws happened to slice across one of my ears. Caught up in the game, I ignored the brief but searing pain. It was only ten minutes later that I sensed something warm on that ear and asked Pam to inspect the damage. Only then did I notice the blood stains on the shoulder of my shirt. Lucy’s razor-sharp claws had inadvertently sliced a thin line down from the top of the ear down close to the lobe and it was bleeding like crazy.

This wound is just the latest in a series of gashes, cuts and bruises administered to me by my wildly enthusiastic puppy. The back of my hands are littered with teeth and claw marks, my right forearm looks like a drug-addicts worst nightmare. In other words, it’s awesome!

What’s the point of having a dog if you can’t get down on the floor and wrestle? Of course, Pam thinks it’s ridiculous and that we “play too hard!” What do women know about such things? Nothing, that’s what.

Lucy the Digger

Ok, so Lucy is a rain lover. She sees no difference between bright sunshine and drizzling rain. She stands at the back door giving us her best “I really got to go,” whine until we get up and let her out. Once she gets out onto the deck, she picks up a soggy ball in her mouth, turns around and stares back at us as if to say, “Well? Can’t you see that I want to play fetch?”

Once she realizes that we are wimps, she goes out into the yard to do her business, and she takes her sweet time doing it, wandering around in full sniff mode. She eventually comes back onto the deck, where she perches herself at the top of the steps, sits down and surveys her kingdom, with not a care in the world and oblivious to the rain.

After a week of puppy life we couldn’t be happier. This adorable dog seems to grow noticeably overnight, every night. We are both starting to worry about just how large she may become. Of course, she still plops herself down directly on our laps as though she were still 2 months old, a comical sight.

We also have in Lucy… a digger. Nothing gives her more joy than to furiously gouge great holes in my backyard next to tree roots and such. This will be item number one in her next Puppy I dog training class at Petco. But the good news is that she adores the back yard. Unlike Molly who loved being outside as long as we were outside with her, Lucy is fascinated with every breeze, every smell and every sound. She is particularly fond of pine cones. As I write this she is in the middle of the yard laying on her belly going to town on a rather large one all in the midst of a fine mist. Whenever she gets tired of the pine cone, she grabs a mouthful of grass. By next Spring I’ll have no grass and a yard full of ankle-breaking holes!