High Plains Panhandler

Day 5 - Summer 2006 Vacation

We've finally made it to Tybee Island, snug against Savannah, just south of Hilton Head in the Atlantic Ocean. The drive through South Carolina from Asheville was very pleasant, and we arrived on the island just in time to check in to our condo.

As we made our way through downtown Savannah, I tried to impress everyone with a bit of newfound knowledge from the AAA travel guide shoved in the snack bag.

"Did you know that Savannah is one of the most haunted cities in the country?" I asked.
"I believe it," said Suzanne. "Look at all the old, creepy oak trees."
"And the old houses that look haunted," said Megan.
"And the beavers!" exclaimed Alex.

The condo Suzanne found us is not fifty feet from the beach, right next to a small walkway over some protected sand dunes. So after we dropped off all our stuff, barely unpacking, we threw on sandals and hit the beach.

It's a hard-packed beach with a firm texture. The fluffy sand is relegated to the sand dunes away from the water. The water's nice and warm, with small waves that crest loudly. There's a distinct and pleasant absence of sea gulls, which is very different than South Padre Island in Texas where they're all over the place. (A small note about sea gulls: even though I've heard you can blow them up by feeding them Alka Seltzer, I watched a couple of guys do this during a high school band trip, but no birds exploded. They did, however, consume vast quantities of our hot dogs and contributed nothing but poop on our blankets, a dessert we more than likely deserved.)

After our quick tour of the beach, we went the The Crab Shack (not to be confused with the less-than-stellar chain restaurant) for dinner. That was fiendishly good, and we highly recommend it. I waited to pay, so Suzanne took the kids to the gift shop. I met up with them a few minutes later, and Alex and Megan yanked me inside to show me something. In a back room were a few large cages with parrots and macaws. I went up to Otis, a particularly striking one, and said, "Hello!" He climbed on the fence's side and made his way over to me. "Hello!" I said again. "Hello!"

Then, not two inches away, Otis shoved his beck through the cage at me and screamed, "BWACKAKKKK!"

"ACK!" I screamed and jumped back a couple of feet. Megan and Alex stood behind me, giggling into their hands. Rascals.

Tomorrow - eluding a sunburn while building the most glorious sandcastle of all time.

Day 4 - Summer 2006 Vacation

Today we spent most of the day crawling across Tennessee, going from Nashville to Knoxville and then up through the mountains and over to Asheville, North Carolina. I took the driving shift through the mountains and took the Mapquest-inspired route off the interstate and on a two lane narrow road through the thick of winding mountain country, which made me very grumpy, Megan very queasy, and the U-Haul truck in front of us very stressed that I wanted to go faster than 42 miles an hour.

We finally made it to my parents' place, a great house nestled in the mountains north of Asheville in a town called Weaverville. We took a short tour of the town a few hours after we arrived, and you could instantly tell it was one of those towns living in American TV folklore where the sheriff's deputy is only allowed one bullet, and he keeps that in this shirt pocket for emergencies (compare this to Amarillo where ammunition is a staple at family dinnertime).

My parents took us to a park in downtown Weaverville so the kid could run out their pent-up energy. A group of ducks were trying to drown six ducklings in the pond (we didn't know where the parent ducks were) so a woman and her husband were trying to rescue them from the lake. The woman had left her two kids alone on the playground equipment next to me while she endeavored to be a good parent to the ducklings. So I sat there on the swing, watching a two-year-old and a one-year-old, and feeling very odd about it. I made some duck noises, but they came out sounding like the Penguin from Batman. The kids stared at me and ate the recycled rubber chunks that made up the playground's floor.

When I was a kid, we traveled to see my great-grandmother in Virginia (or someplace like that). I remember all the power lines connecting houses on that trip. It seemed as if wherever I looked, I saw power lines. Keeping with that theme, I'll let our kids say what they enjoyed about our visit to my parents' house (transcribed as best I could the day after our visit):

Colleen: I liked the dogs because they were really fun to play with and run around with. Just when I was on my roller blades, Scooter started chasing me. It was fun to see Tyler trample Megan.

Megan: Colleen! I got a really bad scrape from that. And it wasn't one of those white scrapes that go away immediately.

Colleen: I also liked breakfast. Poppy and Janana worked really hard to put together this great breakfast. It was scrambled eggs, bacon, cinnamon roles, biscuits, and different drinks. I also liked Poppy and Janana's deck in the backyard. We slept on it last night. It was really cool. I will always remember the birds waking me up. Their chitter-chatter was really nice to hear. I usually hear Megan and Alex argue. It was a nice change. I also liked Poppy and Janana. They were really cool. They rocked. We had fun with them because when we went to the park, Poppy played Lava Monster with us, and we had some fun laughs with Janana. Also, their neighborhood is great. I will never forget the feeling when I whizzed on my roller blades down the hill. It was scary but not forgetful.

Alex: Well, I liked the breakfast and I liked going down the hill with my scooter. I liked playing Hot Lava Monster with Poppy and the baby ducks - I liked watching them. I liked playing with the dogs. And I liked the fluff thing, the blow-up thing, you know the thing we slept on. And it was so fun. I'm sad that we're going, and I love them forever.

Megan: I liked the balcony because you could see a lot of trees and poison ivy. And I liked going down the steps, and we saw a birdhouse on a tree, Colleen saw a black snake on the tree. The snake went into the birdhouse, but when I checked later, it was gone. We were playing in the shed and Colleen was the champion fighter and I was the snake hunter and Alex went to hunt food, but then Daddy came by and said he didn't want us to play in the shed because we might get poisoned by all the gasoline that was in there. And then we made stepping stones for Janana. Alex's glowed in the dark. Mine was a big flower. Colleen's was a big octagon. Alex's said "Alex" with glow-in-the-dark stars and black stuff that looked like Oreo. Colleen's said "Colleen Cool." She decorated with all different colors of the rainbow. Mine, of course, was beautiful.

Tomorrow - we make it to da island, mahn.

Day 3 - Summer 2006 Vacation

I am Elvised out, officially and sacrilegiously Elvised out. A tour of Graceland will do that to you.

We left the Comfort Inn in Little Rock, showing up in Memphis, Tennessee at about 11:00. We had 1:30 ticket reservations for the Elvis Presley Graceland Mecca tour, but we decided to try and bump that time up and get lunch afterward.

It wasn't hard to find Graceland. We knew we were close when we found ourselves on Elvis Presley Road, and we knew we were getting even closer as we passed Elvis Presley Road Cleaners, Elvis Presley Road Tire Service, and all sorts of other fine establishments of promoting the King's implicit endorsement.

We parked in the Official Graceland Parking Lot for $6.00, followed the maroon awning to the ticket shop, and then waited in a long line to buy our tickets. All the while, from the instant we left the van, Elvis serenaded us through speakers placed every few feet (although, strangely, he sang a different tune in the bathroom).

We were able to get an earlier time, getting a spot on the 11 o'clock 10 group. This meant that we had to wait in another long line outside for an airport-style shuttle bus to drive us (and the rest of the number 10 group) from the ticket and museum building across the street to Graceland itself. Before boarding the shuttle bus, a worker handed each of us a pair of headphones and a little audio tour device. When the time was right, we were supposed to punch in a number, told to us by someone in charge, and we'd hear the official tour recording explain what we were seeing.

(Oh, by the way, workers at Graceland don't call it that. They call it Grace-lin. I'm not used to that because that' s not how Paul Simon says it on his album Graceland. He pronounces 'land.' Here it's rushed. Grace-lin.)

I had expected Graceland to operate with a kind of Disney-like efficiency, but it didn't. The workers seemed earnest but uninspired (or, rather, hot), and the entire environment, besides the kitsch, seemed rusty and maintained with a spirt of ennui. The shuttle buses had ripped seats and, instead of headrests, they had torn foam handles.

Then there was Graceland itself, a mansion that has lost its magnificence as we've become a country of McMansions. As soon as we walked in, though, we were hit by the smell of Old Person House, the kind of mothball, plexiglass odor of stagnant houses with fridges from the '50s and 14 cats who all go by the name Mr. something.

We tromped through, looking here and there, the narrator on our headphones interjecting bits of folksy, homespun storytelling. Down in the TV room (Elvis had put up three TVs to watch the different networks simultaneously, a trick he picked up from LBJ), a fellow tourist pointed at one of the TVs (they were showing looping video of shows while Elvis lived at Graceland) and said in a very loud voice because he forgot he was wearing headphones, "THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES!" And then he nodded to everyone, smug in his satisfaction that he would beat us all in Trivial Pursuit: Elvis TV Room Edition.

The tour took us through the house, the Jungle Room (bizarre), the trophy room (interesting), Elvis's gun collection (disturbing), his outfits from the '70s (more disturbing), and ended at the grave where many, many people spent quite a bit of time trying to get themselves in a picture with Elvis's grave marker (even more disturbing). We hopped on the shuttle bus and ended back in front of several new museum and gift shops we hadn't noticed before.

Here's what the kids thought about Graceland:

Alex - I liked the Jungle Room because there were a lot of animals and I like animals better than Bonkers. [Bonkers, by the way, is the kids' indoor playground we went to last summer in Quincy, Illinois.]

Megan - I liked the Jungle Room and the staircase because the Jungle Room had chairs shaped like animals. It would be really cool to sit in them. I liked the staircase because it was made of mirrors. It was a little scary, and it felt like we were going to fall down or something.

Colleen - I really liked the yellow and blue TV room because there was this cute monkey in it and there were a lot of TV's in it and it was comfortable. The monkey was scary.

We stopped for a fantastic lunch at A&R bar-b-que and then drove to Nashville, where a woman asked Jesus to walk with me after I wiped the crumbs of her table. On this part of the trip I discovered Tennessee drivers are crazy and horrible. All this time I thought Houston drivers were bad, but I was sadly mistaken.

Our hotel in Nashville was the gorgeous Wyndam at Union Station, a retrofitted old train station that is now a scenic downtown hotel right. We checked in and then walked around downtown for a bit, ending up at a brew pub for dinner. Then we took a quick tour of the river side and found a small park full of lightning bugs. The kids loved it. We don't have lightning bugs in Amarillo. We have plenty of lightning though. The bugs must have given up against that kind of competition.

Tomorrow - a trek by the Smoky Mountains and a visit to Asheville, NC.

Day 2 - Summer 2006 Vacation

At least the kids slept in a little this morning, but at around eight o'clock everyone was raring to go. The Econo Lodge, home of People Who Talk Loudly In Front Of Your Door and Carpets Of Mysterious Stains, offered a complimentary continental breakfast, but the continent must have been the land of sugar because all they had were powdered doughnuts and sticky buns. Since traveling with sugar-laden kids that early in the morning wasn't at all attractive, we opted for IHOP and something rooty tooty fresh and fruity.

After that it was a quick and pretty trip from Hot Springs to Little Rock, the Arkansas state capital and neighbor to Pinnacle Mountain State Park, which we thought would make for a great hiking and lunch spot. We hung around the Visitor's Center for a bit, looking through binoculars and watching honey bees in a glass hive, before deciding to try one of the hikes. We picked the West Summit Trail, which leaves from a nice picnic area and climbs the entire mountain, through boulder fields and steep inclines, and finishes with a spectacular view of the valley and lake.

I don't know what happened to me halfway up the trail, but I started sweating worse than Ted Striker in Airplane! It was horrible, as if someone had attached a tube to my head and was pumping salt water all over my face. We climbed and climbed and I sweated and sweated. The kids did great. Suzanne did great. I got soaked.

After an hour fifteen up and 30 minutes down, we finished the hike and were all wiped out. We made claim to a shady picnic table and devoured our sandwiches. Then I made the clever offer to cool down the van, for the sake of the kids you know. As soon as I stood up, Megan happily pointed that I had left a big wet mark on the concrete picnic bench. This started all sorts of scurrilous rumor-mongering between the kids about my need for a visit to the bathroom, but I simply explained that every millimeter of my clothes was marinated in sweat.

We headed to the Clinton presidential museum after that. It was interesting but vastly different than the Lincoln museum we visited last summer in Illinois. There were shelves of folders containing Clinton's daily itineraries and schedules, so Colleen looked up the day she was born and found out all the presidential goings on. Megan tried to find her book (January, 1998) but the volume was mysteriously missing. We think it had to do with the voluminous time stamp entries for that month that must have said "Intern meeting all morning," and "Meet with intern for emergency session." Alex was born during George W. Bush's first term. I think that's why he cried a lot.

After that we had a plan to make our way to Riverfront Park because we heard there was plenty of interesting restaurants and things to see there. We didn't know this weekend was Riverfest, a big celebration of . . . well, it has to do with the river and a lot of people. We found out it cost $15 a person to get in, and since we had no idea of 'in' was, we opted to find a dinner restaurant somewhere else. We ended up at the Peabody Hotel for a wonderful meal.

The Peabody is know for its ducks that live in the pool and occasionally come down to the lobby to splash in the fountain. The kids really wanted to see the ducks, but we didn't know where the pool was, and since we didn't have the courage to ask at the front desk (being invaders in the hotel and all) we thought we'd take our chances in the glass elevator and find it for ourselves. There were plenty of buttons in the elevator, but I (being the smarty pants) figured the button labeled "P" surely must mean "pool." So Alex pushed it and we shot up, ending not at the pool but at the penthouse with a floor full of Terminix sales people. This frightened us, so we dove back into the elevator and zipped down to the lobby. The kids loved the glass elevator and screamed and shouted as we traveled down (obviously we don't have many tall buildings in Amarillo). They had more fun in that thing than in the Clinton library, that's for sure.

Tomorrow - blue suede shoes, fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches, and bar-b-que.

Day 1 - Summer 2006 Vacation

This year our Big Deal family vacation takes us through the southeast of the United States, from Amarillo to Tybee Island off the coast of Georgia.

We left at six this morning under a ominous and billowing red dawn sky (ominous until you realize that all morning skies in Amarillo are red and dramatic. Suzanne reminded me of this since I'm not one to bounce out of bed so early to check the status of the summer sunrise). Our plan was to make it to Henryetta, Oklahoma for a picnic lunch at a city park and then finish the day by stopping for the night in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Once we carefully considered the map though, we thought better of the Henryetta park and decided to have a picnic at Lake Eufaula State Park. Since we had no idea where to go in the park, we stopped at the info station, a very funky '50s-style star-shaped teepee, and I went inside with Alex to get the skinny. An old woman with piled up hair worked the counter, and as soon as she saw Alex she said, "What a pretty little girl! Har har har!" Alex did not like this one bit; the look on his face was as if we had cancelled Christmas. So he pushed his face into my leg and refused to look at he old woman.

"Little girl?" I said, trying to sound incredulous for Alex's sake (yet not wanting to offend the woman because, as we tour these wooded and hilly part of the country, I fear banjo playing albinos and other river-dwellers).

"Yeah, what a pretty little girl," she said again. "Har har har!"

I picked Alex up and placed him on the counter. He was obviously afraid to look at this woman.

"Oh, I know he's a little boy. Har har har. I knowed it all the time. Har har."

This was my first conversation of any length with someone from Oklahoma. I had no idea what Arkansas might bring.

Lunch was pleasant, although I saw plenty of tatooed guys shout at their kids, Lake Eufaula's pristine brown beach water up to their calfs, cigarette's dangling from their mouths. We left after stumbling across some very odd, Star Trek-like plastic containers in the lake by the shore spouting weird colorful wires as if they were flower arrangements.

We drove on to Russellville (I tried to take a picture of the town sign as we passed through for my friend Russell, but it came out smeared and jokeless), passed Nimrod Lake (which made Suzanne and me giggle) and cut through the Ouachita National Forest on the way to Hot Springs. Here Suzanne and I had an in-depth conversation speculating on the origin of the word "Hillbilly." She guessed that it had something to do with billy goats, but I argued that it was obviously due to a lot of shirtless guys wandering around the hills of Arkansas. At one time they were called "hill belly," but over time that grew into "hillbilly." I believe this is the correct etymology.

Hot Springs was packed with Memorial Day travelers, and the traffic was jammed on the small two lane road that ran through town. We noticed plenty of churches and plenty of more adult fare (strip karaoke being one of my favorites). Suzanne pointed out this dichotomy and said of the area's favorite son, "That pretty much sums up Bill Clinton, doesn't it? Saint and sinner."

I guess the more religion a place says it has, the more vice keeps sliding in through cracks in the insulation.

We hiked around Hot Springs National Park for a bit, burned our hands in the springs, and then, wiped out, retreated for dinner and a dip in the pool at the hotel (the Econo Lodge, which is okay although it seems a desperate and loud place, but it was the only place around that had room - dang those pesky tourists on a long holiday weekend).

Tomorrow - a relaxing day in LIttle Rock with a picnic at a state park, a visit to the Clinton Museum, exploration of the city, and a nice dinner.

Recital

Colleen and Alex played a viola and cello recital last weekend, and I have video to prove it. Click here to see the movie (it's big - almost 50 megs - so the download might take awhile).

Free Cole Slaw

Because of rain (.03 of a inch of Texas Panhandle goodness), we had to reschedule both Colleen and Alex's track meets for that past Monday evening. Suzanne and I had to divide and conquer, since Alex's meet was a few miles from Colleen's. Alex invited me to his meet, so I took Megan and a nice dinner that Suzanne had packed for me, and we headed to the field. Amid all the chaos of track parents and runners, Megan and I spread out our blanket under a batch of shade, and as she read I ate. This was my dinner: chicken, fruit salad, and cole slaw.

When Alex started running, I left Megan in charge of the blanket and walked to the sidelines of the track to cheer him on. When he finished, I returned to my tasty meal, but when I got there I noticed Megan staring at five wretched urchin children who were all huddled together on our blanket. By urchin children, I mean Bleak House-type kids with ratty, ill-fitting clothes who looked as if they worked in a textile factory and played with dolls made out of coal lumps. As I got closer, I saw what they were doing.

They were eating my cole slaw. With their hands. Scooping it out like it was ice cream.

"Hey!" I said. "That's my dinner! Megan!"
"They just showed up, Daddy," said Megan, mesmerized by the whole thing.
"Well . . ." and all I could come up with was, "shoo!"

The kids, their faces covered with remnants of cole slaw and dirt, scattered. I was left with an empty cole slaw container, two grapes, half a strawberry, and a chicken bone.

A few minutes later, the youngest urchin (barely toddling along) came back to the blanket and started knocking his fist on the small cooler that had held my dinner. His mother quickly followed, swatted him on the bottom, and then took him to a tree about two feet away, pointed him at the tree, and yanked down his pants. Then the little boy peed on the tree. Right next to me.

Super!

I think I've learned a valuable lesson. When confronted with overzealous and hyper-eager adults at Megan's soccer games or Colleen's volleyball games, I'm simply going to ask them, "Well, who ate your cole slaw?" or "Who peed on your tree this morning?"

That'll shut them up. If not, I know some real-life urchins who can do the job for me.