Wilmington Weekend Update #10

Wilmington Weekend Update #10

I hope that you, like us, spent Labor Day reflecting on the Marxist Dialectic. You reflect on a lot of things when you’re driving ten hours with three kids.

Last week was the first day of school in North Carolina, and Sellers embraced not only kindergarten but his teacher, Ms. LaGrange. She smiled up at Margaret and said, “Oh, he’s one of those!” Abby enjoyed meeting Ms. McIntyre as well, but she’s worried one of the girls in her class is a bully. (So far she swears all our bully-handling advice has failed, from complimenting her to ignoring her. But she hasn’t tried the old, “sucker punch her in the solar plexus when no one’s looking and let her know there’s more where that came from.” Maybe next week.) After school Margaret picked Abby and Sellers up and took them to Port City Java to celebrate (only decaf for them).

Kindergarten starts in shifts, so Sellers spent the next two days being bored in his mommy’s office while she saw record numbers of patients (a good thing). Unfortunately she was also racked with abdominal pain (a bad thing) and had to go home early Wednesday. She recovered over the next couple of days with Prilosec (a good thing).

Thursday it was off to Asheville, the first leg of our journey to Lookout Mountain. I figured we’d be out of the house no later than 9:00 AM. So at 12:30 PM I resolved yet again to stop smoking crack (see Update #9) and we pulled out.

Varying driving styles can stress a marriage, but over the years we’ve worked out a system. I drive, which prevents me sitting in the passenger’s seat muttering, “Go on, you can take this guy! Gun it!” Margaret navigates, but if she watches the road she spends a lot of time jumping uncontrollably and jamming her left foot on the imaginary brake pedal. So instead she reads aloud, in this case Dan Brown’s prequel to The DaVinci Code, Angels and Demons. This thriller is not destined for anyone’s creative writing course, and if you’ve read/seen The DaVinci Code you already know what’s going to happen. But it’s action-packed enough that my adrenaline was pumped, and I was clipping along with my eyes riveted to the road, glancing all directions to make sure we cruised at just under give-me-a-ticket speed without giving Margaret cause to yelp.

So we were both surprised when we suddenly lost speed just as the “Welcome to Sampson County” sign loomed. I checked the gas gauge, apparently for the first time, to see the needle resting at the bottom over a brightly lit orange “E”. We were in denial until we came to a rest on the shoulder just in front of the sign: “No, kids, this isn’t a scheduled stop. Daddy ran out of gas. Yes, really. He thought I filled up and I thought he filled up but he took his car to run errands this morning instead of mine. Yes, we’re sweating, too. No, we’re not sure what we’re going to do, but we’ll think of something. No, you can’t get out of your seats.”

So after learning we hadn’t subscribed to the roadside assistance feature on the cell phone and, no, we couldn’t subscribe by phone, we gave up and called 911. And that’s how I found myself speeding down I76 West in a police interceptor at 95 miles per hour making polite conversation with a pleasant middle-aged state trooper while he worked on his laptop computer. What do I do? Um, I’m a doctor. Yep, lot’s of book learning, not so much common sense, ha-ha. But talk about Your Tax Dollars At Work, not only did he take me to get gas, he led us to a station to fill up, and then brought us back to the highway. If you can arrange it, I urge you to travel at least once with a police escort.

The rest of our trip was uneventful, and despite the setback we made it to the Grove Park Inn by nightfall as chimney swifts wheeled in a living cloud over the resort. The kids behaved remarkably well at dinner, with Julian waiting until the very end to spill water all over the table.

In the morning we enjoyed room service then toured the grounds briefly. Our beach-kids enjoyed the novelty of running up and down grassy hills, and they found the antique car museum mildly amusing. By the time we were ready to get on the road it was lunchtime, so we stopped at Jimmy Buffet’s chain, Cheeseburger In Paradise. The burgers were, well, okay, but it was a fun meal and the music was good. From there we had a pretty straight shot to Lookout Mountain and Nana Fran’s.

We arrived just before Momma and Daddy came in from Memphis. The kids played baseball with their grandparents and we got cars unloaded. Everyone got caught up over steaks and wine, then the kids saw something else we don’t have: fireflies.

That night all three children piled into one bed (their choice – Nana Fran offered at least two) and kicked and rolled all over each other, leading to some complaints come morning. But the lure of the Tennessee Aquarium was enough to perk everyone up, and we spent the afternoon with Granne and Grandpa John in Downtown Chattanooga.

We only saw half the aquarium, but Julian suddenly felt warm, and heavy raindrops were coming down, so we made a run for the drugstore and Nana Fran’s. Julian’s fever was only 102.8, and I couldn’t find anything wrong with him, so we loaded him with Tylenol and got everyone cleaned up for dinner with Aunt Toni, Uncle Jack, Aunt Melissa, and Uncle Matt. After two years away it was great to catch up with everyone (and to meet Matt for the first time).

Despite thirty years of trips to Lookout Mountain, I had never Seen Rock City. Since Sellers is all about the rocks, we decided Sunday was the day. So we paid our way into the ur-tourist trap and found ourselves on The Enchanted Trail (the souvenir shop at the entrance to the park). The Trail wound among towering rock formations and rich foliage and took us to the souvenir shop at Mushroom Rock, the souvenir shop at Eye of the Needle, and the big souvenir shop where the Swing Bridge meets See Seven States and Lover’s Leap (don’t leap – it’s really, really high with scary-low railings). And yes, we did pay $10 for a photo of ourselves on the Swing Bridge, but you’ll have to wait for our Christmas card to see it.

We arrived at the Critter Auditorium just in time for the Raptor show, where we got close-up looks at owls, hawks, a vulture, and an eagle. Take-home message: if you find a baby bird of prey don’t hand-raise it, or it’ll end up touring the South as part of an educational/entertainment program with really bad jokes.

The kids were pretty wiped after all that walking (except for Julian, who took maybe two steps without being held) but they perked up at the Mountain Cafe, as far as I know the only restaurant on Lookout Mountain not within the gates of a tourist trap. After that we rested then got cleaned up for a shrimp boil at Aunt Christopher’s and Uncle Jay’s stately new house. Here our kids encountered their Hill cousins for the first time in two years (five cousins in three weeks, their heads are spinning). Julian, Sellers, and Abby are nearly perfectly age-matched with Miller, Alex, and Wilder. At first the parties were wary of each other, but by the end of the evening they were so busy together in the playroom they didn’t seem to hear the grownups pleading with them to separate so we could get them in bed. (Irony: Sellers had to travel to Lookout Mountain to learn how to peel shrimp.)

This morning started with another amazing breakfast spread from Nana Fran. Our initial plan had been to break the trip into two legs both ways, but we would have missed last night, and I just can't turn down free shrimp, so we decided to stay over. All in all, it wasn’t bad. We hopped from one McDonald’s to the next across four states, and as we traversed the countryside the kids got a real taste of this great country we live in, from Africa (The Lion King, The Lion King 1 1/2) to Japan (Spirited Away) to Saudi Arabia (Aladdin). Once I thought they were looking out the window, but they were just bored with the FBI warning at the beginning of Over the Hedge.

We made Wilmington in 9 hours 45 minutes, 100 pages shy of finishing Angels and Demons. We’ve now restocked the fridge, piled laundry on the floor, and opened the suitcases, from which we plan to dress until at least Thursday. Margaret is finishing last week’s patient encounters while I do this. This week Margaret is working all four days and I’m on call tomorrow and Saturday, so the next blog might be really boring. We hope you’re all well, and if we just saw you, thanks, it was a great trip! Now that we know we can drive ten hours with the kids and not kill them, who knows where we’ll go next?

David