Atlanta, Georgia and Spartanburg, South Carolina

We just got back from a big ol' trip...I choose not to post until I got back...

I suppose for the safety of it...

This post is from that trip.

We ended up leaving Huntsville about mid-day to head toward Atlanta...and we arrived IN Atlanta around 5pm on the Friday before Labor Day.  But starting there, well, that's only part of the story...so let me back up a little.  There are so many pictures from this time frame...I'm just going to throw them in here...

First of all, let me introduce my friend the Composer...(hey, look, another picture of me from this trip...)

The Composer and Me, at a football game...
gee, it's like we're 16 again...sorta.

Okay...so how do I know him?  Well, years and years and years ago, when I was between 11 - 13 years old, we lived near each other and were friends.  My best friend, Kehaar (who now lives in Wisconsin) and his best friend, Gator (who now lives in South Carolina) were neighbors in Stuart, Florida.  As their best friends, we often went to the same parties and hung out together.  When I was 16, I went back to Florida to see everybody and he and I went on a DATE...and then I went home to California and grew up, got married, had a family of my own, while he was doing the same thing in Florida and eventually Georgia. 

The very first night...see the video below...the composer decided to get all the kids in the band.

The beginning of a beautiful friendship between Monkey-Face and the composer.  She has a tendency to wrap grown men around her little finger...he had no hope, really.

Fast forward slightly less than 30 years...we reconnected, maybe 5 years ago, on facebook, and have been "friends" in the "oh look, kids" sort of way that distant friends are "friends" on facebook...until Mother's Day of this year when we started talking.  Obviously, we ACTUALLY became friends again along the way. 

It was hot...it was muggy...but OOOOOoh, I love the trees in South Carolina.

Bear and Drummer-boy got along pretty well over all...they are closest in age and have a similar humor that kept the rest of us laughing.

Now, we'd been talking about intersecting on this trip for awhile and there had been a couple of snags along the way, but by the time it was set...the Composer and his two boys and a couple of their friends were planning a "Sissy" camping trip for Labor Day.  See, they'd always roughed it...tents, etc.  For this trip, they were getting a camper.  Once we'd decided that we girls were going to be near the same place at the same time...it became a much bigger deal.

The Composer said we had to have a fire...my less-fun personality said, "Um, it's like 900 degrees out here"...I was disregarded.  Turns out camping is NOT camping without a fire...period.

Lunch...it's a roasted marshmallow on a peanut butter sandwich...not pretty...but yummy, nonetheless.

See, with us involved, it boosted the headcount from 4 or 5 BOYS to possibly 8 or 9 mixed gender all trying to CAMP.  We decided that consolidating us into one vehicle would be easier and more fun than driving two...so the Composer arranged to get a 15 passenger van to PULL the camper. 

Our very "manly" 15 passenger van and the camper.  There was a day dream going around that we were FBI Surveillance...boys are weird.

Drummer-boy unhooking the camper from the van.  Incidentally, we had two hitch issues on the trip...but not one once Drummer-boy started handling it...Coincidence?  I think not.

Only one problem, the Composer was not SUPER familiar with the ins and outs of pulling THAT much real estate down the road.  Enter Grandpa Bob and Grandma. 

See, Grandpa Bob knows all about pulling all manner of vehicles down the road...and he was in Florida the week before we were going to take this trip.  Now, when I called Grandpa Bob about this potential dilemma I was hoping that he would CALL the Composer.  Y'know, talk him through the questions that he had.  In the end, Grandpa and Grandma DROVE to Atlanta to be with the Composer as he went to get the van and camper and then proceeded to teach him everything he could possibly need to know about pulling and setting up the camper.  Let me take just a moment to say how very VERY thankful I am to have Grandpa Bob.

Drummer-boy  and Bear

Perfect marshmallows, Baby!

Okay...so the trip, in a nutshell, we got there Friday night.  We packed and sorted and consolidated for much of Saturday.  Thankfully, we did get there almost 24 hours early, if we hadn't, the consolidating and packing would NOT have gone as well.  It takes a herculean effort anytime one camps, and if we really hadn't been there until midday Saturday, I'm not sure we'd have gotten it done.

Around 5 pm we were ready and took off with the Composer, his younger son, Drummer-boy, and a friend of Drummer-boy's (who shall remain nameless as he is someone else's child), and the four of us...the Composer's older son was unable to join us, so, in the end we were seven in all...to Spartanburg, South Carolina.  We camped Saturday night, all day Sunday and Sunday night, and headed back to Atlanta on Monday.

There are SO many stories.  Seriously, I never knew you could pack that many little tiny things into, essentially, 3 days.  First of all, the kids got along great.  No worries there.

This was NOT a road...This was a barricaded Horse Path...This included asking children to remove the barricade so that we could drive on this path.  This lawbreaking was done without my knowledge or consent.  I only found out after we entered the "road". This IS my favorite...funniest memory and too bad for you, I'm not sharing it here.

Hello, Deer!!  There were actually two of them.  So pretty.

The Composer is one of those, "Come do this with me" type of guys.  You know the ones, if there is a kid within earshot, that kid is holding the flash light or pulling the rope or carrying the firewood.  Honestly, I was kind of humbled by that.  My, "OH, I'll just do it myself" nature really took a hit watching him set things up while keeping every one of those kids busy and underfoot.

"We're hot...hurry up!"

Best thing ever...kids loading the van...the WHOLE van.  Maybe the Composer helped them with the heaviest cooler...but I don't think so.

One of the more memorable moments was my girls helping him set up the awning.  OH.MY.GOODNESS. I laughed so hard.  I wish I'd gotten it on video.  To say that it didn't go RIGHT, would be a major understatement...but they all laughed (well, I did, anyway) and managed to get it at the right height and shading as it should.

This is actually taking DOWN the awning.  It went pretty smoothly overall.  Not nearly as funny.

Please note the Composer.  He is doing his very manly, "Happy to have CONQUERED the awning" dance.  Sadly, another moment I failed to VIDEO.

He is also a musician (hence the nickname) which came in handy several times.  Whether it was teaching the girls a little guitar, bass, and drum that first night...playing guitar around the camp fire...or picking up the rhythm to the cup song IRRITATINGLY quickly, he fit right in with our bursting-into-song nature. 

 

I think the thing I noticed the most was how comfortable the trip was.  I'm pretty easy going.  I like camping.  But I've seen these things go JUST wrong.  Nothing bad happened.  Even the "stressful" parts, when the camper/hitch didn't work quite like we'd expected, were quickly resolved so we could go on with the fun.  We adults let the kids run all over the countryside with walkie-talkies (of course) and we got to talk...and laugh...and walk...and just relax.

The creek that we managed to get to without driving illegally on a barricaded horse trail after all....

I had to MAKE them be still...creeks are awesome.

Kids on a bridge.

Yeah...I have no idea.

It was a great sub-trip.  My kids have been talking about it ever since and we all hope to have another opportunity some day.  For now, it was great to see my friend again, and get to know him as a grown up and a father.  I really am so blessed that we could reconnect and do this together. 

What is a roadtrip without Cracker Barrel?

See ya around...

Vicksburg, Missippi to Huntsville, Alabama...

We just got back from a big ol' trip...I choose not to post until I got back...

I suppose for the safety of it...

This post is from that trip.

 

Okay...so the trip...the trip...try to keep up will you?  I mean I know that I reached the end of the stuff I'd already written about the trip...I know that I've sorta lost the momentum, but c'mon, it's Saturday...the kids are watching T.V. ... Let's see what we can do here.

 

So we drove from Mississippi to Huntsville, Alabama...listening to Harry Potter the whole way. 

 

Huntsville was one of our EVENTS with a capital E we had on our original plan.  There is a space center in Huntsville that we'd wanted to see since my Aunt and Uncle had been here and we'd eaten the space ice cream they'd brought us, back in July.

 

 

Huntsville was the reason that we'd studied the history of NASA right along with the history of the Civil War.  It was the reason that we'd watched "Apollo 13" and "When We Left Earth"...

 

 

 

The thing is...we were getting excited about the next part of the trip...the camping portion...the interacting with other people portion...the seeing Grandma and Grandpa portion...

Really excited.

We woke up the morning that we were supposed to GO to the Space Center and Beanie started the "Um, how far IS it to Atlanta"  "Um, couldn't we go today and not wait overnight?"  "Really, it would save us money to stay with the Composer tonight instead of in a hotel, AND we'd see Grandma and Grandpa."

I love this one...it's going on my Happiness Wall.

Monkey Face laughs every time she sees this one.

For my part there were major issues with straying from the plan...first and foremost being the COST of the Space Center and then cutting the trip short.  I mean, most of the time it doesn't matter how long you stay at a place...5 minutes or 5 hours costs the exact same, and frankly, I was not willing to pay for it only to bail so that we could throw off everyone's set plan.

It turns out that the cost was not an issue.  Once again, my membership to a local museum came to the rescue.  As my local museum and The Huntsville Space Center have a relationship that allows members to either museum access to the other, we were able to go for 5 minutes or 5 hours for free.

Oy...those little faces...learning...

Watching a video on black holes which was the theme of the month at "Ye Olde Space Center"

My second issue was that I was getting tired, every day on the road adds to my overall feeling of fatigue. This is not a new thing, I've experienced it with every single trip I've ever taken.  While I love to drive, no kidding around, even on my best days, I'm much more comfortable driving earlier in the day...by about 2 pm I'm getting sleepy and I like to stop often and slow down.  I've even been known to pull over and nap for 20 minutes, so I knew that any afternoon driving WAS going to take longer than if we left in the morning.  If we went to the Space Center at all, I was going to have to drive the 3 1/2 hours to Atlanta in the afternoon or early evening...not MY prime driving time.

Turns out, adrenaline took care of that.

A mock up of the Rocket Pack...I think.

Coolest scale ever...it tells you how heavy you are on earth and on the moon...and one other place (sadly, I didn't get a closer picture and I can't remember...I was focusing on the moon weight...I seriously loved the moon weight)

The last and probably biggest issue was...well...See, I wasn't all that sure that I wanted to go on this camping trip.  I mean I WANTED to go...but then...well, I hadn't laid eyes on my friend in about 27 years.  It's kind of like deciding if you want to go to your high school reunion...only worse, because there were kids thrown in.  What if the kids didn't like each other?

I decided to just quit thinking about it...and carry on.

This was a simulator for landing the space shuttle...Bear managed to do it right-ish once.

This is the screen you got when you failed.  I wish that I had taken video because the audio for each failure was SO surprising and funny.  A sarcastic man would tell you just where you'd gone wrong.

I'm glad I did.  The museum was fun.  We were there about 3 hours and got to see a little bit of everything.  Owing to the timing, it being the Thursday before Labor Day, all the local schools were in session so the place was nearly deserted.  Every staff person that we found was ALL ours to ask any question we wanted and a couple of them offered up various demos almost immediately because there really wasn't anyone else around.

One of the staff...she set off a baking soda rocket for us and one other little boy in the vicinity.  She and Beanie hit it off because Bean stomped right up and said something like, "So, what have you got to show me?"

One of the smaller Command Module mock-ups.  Anything to lay on your back with your cool shoes up in the air.

It was kind of great actually and somehow magically played into the plan that we didn't know was in place when I started out by saying, "Let's see what happens" as we started out on the road.


I didn't get a picture of it...but we actually rode a couple of rides.  One that made me SI-ICK, well, nauseous anyway.  It was just a mini-flight simulator deal, like a scaled down version of Star Tours at Disney.  But it was very small and had no air flow...and it was a little warm.  BARF.

"HEY MAAAH!  LOOOKIE!  We're playing under the Rocket!!"  It was kind of cool because the engines were steaming and dripping, so from far away it looked like they were about to ignite...although, a little terrifying if you really think about it.

This was the full sized mock up of the command module that they used to simulate all sorts of things that the astronauts would go through...The girls are laying on their backs in this picture.

I was pretty sure after the simulator that I was a goner, because the next one that they wanted me to ride was G-Force.  You know, the one where you stand against the wall and they spin you and in a minute the thing you are leaning against lifts off the ground and because of centrifugal force you are hanging on the wall.  Yeah...that one.  Actually...it wasn't too bad at all.  Maybe because there wasn't any horizon to tell me that I was spinning.  Whatever the reason, I was glad not to be sick.

In the end, we were there exactly the right amount of time.  And because we left early and ended up in Atlanta, Georgia a night early, we got more time to spend with Grandma and Grandpa and the people that would soon be our WHOLE family's friends...

But that's another post...

See ya around...

When You Give a Kid a Camera...

We just got back from a big ol' trip...I choose not to post until I got back...

I suppose for the safety of it...

This post is from that trip.

 

If you've followed my blog for very long, you will know that I LOVE my camera.  And that I LOVED the camera before this one before it started growling at me and subsequently died.  It's not a super expensive camera, as camera's go, but it's not a super INexpensive camera either. 
  

Some of my favorite qualities...the ability to point and shoot.  I looked into the SLRs and they were pretty great...but a little too much car for me, if you know what I mean.  I think those might be more for REAL photographers...like you know, those people who ACTUALLY plan their shots and stuff.  Not someone like me who runs around sneaking up on people and snapping as fast as they can.
 

I really like its zoom.  Again, not the best ever, but still pretty awesome, especially when you are sneaking up on a kid from far away, or the KID is far away and wants to show you something.  I have a not-so-secret desire to find a super-duper-zoomy lens that fits my camera, but having looked at them, I'm comfortable with the dreaming and not so much the buying.

 

But my favorite thing...it's really silly...my favorite thing is the shoulder strap.  I know, I know, I can hear you saying, "Stack, EVERY camera has been able to have a shoulder strap since the dawn of cameras...that's like saying you like the wheel or fire."  Yes, dear reader, you are exactly correct.  It is a dumb thing to give me such joy...but lemme tell you why...

 

See, I've got these three kids. 

 

And they make me so very happy that I want to give them the opportunity to try stuff I do and maybe become really good at those things...like sewing...or photography.  See, the thing about letting someone else TRY one of YOUR things...is you have to LET GO of the thing.  I'm afraid that without the shoulder strap on my beloved camera there are at least TWO of those kids that would never get their grubby fingers NEAR my camera.  Why?  Because I'm a cranky, selfish thing, that puts the camera in a child's hand and doesn't see the joy of the art they are learning, but only the CRASH and SMASHED lens and broken pieces that I'm sure will come about when they run with the camera to their eye and trip over something.

 

But with the shoulder strap, I figure there's at least a little insurance.  Alright, maybe writing it down is weakening my case...they still run with it up to their eye...and they still could trip...but weirdly enough, they don't usually fall down, so the camera SHOULD only "fall" the length of the shoulder strap.  I'll just have to keep praying for their billy-goat-like reflexes.  But I digress.

 

So all of my kids had my camera at various points in this trip.  In Mississippi, we played in this terrific park overlooking the mighty river.  Bear got bored and I was chatting on the phone, so I handed her the camera.  So glad I did.

  

 



 

And the coup de grace?  The one that I looked at and was so happy that I'd buried my selfishness and felt safe to hand my 10 year old my camera with the quick, "don't forget the shoulder strap"...as she took off down the park along the Mississippi?

 

 

Sunset on the river?  Getouttahere!!  I love it.

 

I also dig that we got pictures through THEIR eyes.  I'm always the one behind the lens, and that's great for seeing MY point of view...the things I notice that I find beautiful, but I think we may be entering a new phase here, where we (you and I, dear reader) get to see a little more into their heads.  I've gotta tell you, I can't wait.

 

Also, it will be nice to be able to prove that I actually go places with them...here's hopin.

 

Until then, here is a picture of the native rocks from somewhere along our journey for your viewing pleasure...

 

 

See ya around...

Well...I suppose you MIGHT want to know...

I have a friend who reads my blog.

Shocking, I know.

He wanted to know why my blog is running "like a month" late.  Well, because if I don't DO the trip posts right now, while it's sorta fresh, I WON'T do the trip posts.  And I'm better staying focused on the task at hand (posting all the pictures) or it will NEVER get done.

AND...the issues I'm having with posting the pictures ends up frustrating me and making me want to throw the laptop...or at least SLAM it.  And with the soft close thing, that is NEVER satisfying.  So it's taking longer to post the trip posts.

So for those of you wondering what we're up to right NOW...

We are good...we are back, got back 2 weeks ago...kids are good, doing school with great energy, Grandma and Grandpa B are in town for the moment...we are all VERY much enjoying the cooler weather...

Um.

Yep, that's it for now.

Oh and here's the only other picture of me from the trip.  Walking up the stairs in the Old Courthouse Museum in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

See ya around...

EM-Doodle Dot-Crooked Letter-Crooked Letter-Doodle Dot-Crooked Letter-Crooked Letter-Doodle Dot-Hump Back-Hump Back-Doodle Dot.

We just got back from a big ol' trip...I choose not to post until I got back...

I suppose for the safety of it...

These next few posts were written in the last few weeks.

That's how my big brother taught me to spell it way back when.  I prefer it to EM-Eye-Crooked-Letter Crooked-Letter...etc. 

So Mississippi.  The FIRST place I CHOSE to go.  Why?  Well, because, this year in history we are going to be studying the Civil War.  I don't know if you are aware of this...but that was a pretty big deal in this country.  I would go so far as to say foundational in how stuff WORKS or doesn't in our country even today.

And you know what, I live within 2 day's drive of pretty much every major battle site.  Let that sink in for just a moment.  My kids can go there, touch stuff, stand and watch the sunset on the Mississippi river, listen to people whose families date back to that era and have left journals and other artifacts and who are interested in the happenings of history because it affected their families.  They can experience a little, even if only a glancing look into the past, not just through books but through tangible objects.

Vicksburg, Mississippi was the first stop on our route.

 

 

 

There is a TON of history in Vicksburg.  We got to go to the McNutt House and talk to the owner who was one of those loves-history-types and has artifacts from the various families that lived in the area, both his own family (well, his wife's family) and the information and artifacts that came with the house.

 

Like the family cannon ball, which actually turned out to be the family mortar shell.  There is a story of someone looking for a cannon ball which is 8-9 inches across and overlooking this 13 inch beast because it was too big, only to discover this is what Granny had meant by, "Go get the cannon ball out of the shed." 

One of the journals recovered was written by a woman who lived in the area at the time of the Siege of Vicksburg.  In it, she talked about these mortar shells looking like watermelons flying overhead and how to avoid being injured.  See, they usually exploded in the direction they were going...they'd hit the ground and decimate whatever was in front of them.  So if you could see them coming, and they were BIG and slow, you could get behind them and usually avoid injury.  But during the Siege of Vicksburg, Grant was hurling them from the Mississippi (about a block and a half from the McNutt House) and from the land so the citizens and soldiers of Vicksburg were caught in the middle.

 

Then there was the family Confederate Soldier.  Apparently there were several endeavors by the various southern associations to relocate all the Confederate dead to cemeteries.  But when they came to move Lt. D. W. Magill, his descendants said, "We don't bother him and he don't bother us" and so there he lays.  Methinks that's a newer headstone, but that could not be confirmed by our guide.

The family Confederate Soldier lead to talk of various ghosts that have been reported around the place.  I guess 185 years of history is going to include a ghost or two.  The most poignant story being that of a little girl named Margaret, who had come to visit and subsequently died of yellow fever.  In the years that the McNutt house served as a Montessori school the kindergarteners would often come back from recess wondering why that little girl in the blue dress didn't have to come in at the same time.  When questioned the children would answer that, "Her name is Maggie". 

I ended up having to shut down the other ghost stories because Monkey Face just is NOT ready for that kind of thing.  Probably best in the long run for all of us, nightmares being what they are in my house.  But it was creepily fascinating, nonetheless.  This is a picture of the patio on which Maggie has been sited most.  Monkey Face could not keep her eyes off of it.

The grounds of the McNutt house were simply beautiful.  I could have sat there all day except for the fact that it was HOT and muggy...still, I'll bet it's beautiful on a cool fall morning.

We also went to the Old Court House Museum and talked to Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Cotton.  At first I thought this was just going to be one of those "stuff" museums.  The downstairs was FULL of stuff.  Many many civil war era artifacts.  Some of them war-ish...and some just mundane and some really beautiful things.

The next few are for my friend, the composer, you'll meet him in a few days...he speaks of Steinway like a long lost love...and I found a REALLY old, rectangular one.  Probably best he wasn't with us...he probably would have wanted to play it or something.  As it was, I had a hard time not asking for a vacuum for some of those strings...

But none of these things were my favorite part of this museum...nope...this was my favorite part...the ACTUAL old Courthouse...(LOOK LOOKIE...there I am...I managed to be in 2 pictures this whole trip...2.  My toes not-withstanding.  But at least I can prove that I was there.)

This was a cool room.  Big high ceilings, wood floors, open French doors on each side to let the light and breeze in...and at the front a sort of dais settled under an acoustic shell.  Very VERY cool room.  All of a sudden the pictures of the early courts came into focus...all the times I'd wondered how they could hear each other without shouting and without modern sound equipment.  One look at this room proved there would be NO problem hearing.  As a matter of fact, I would bet it got pretty loud.

I made the girls sing in it...really quietly so that they could get an idea of how well the room was built for sound. 

 

Later when we went down stairs, as if to drive the lesson on acoustics home, Mr. Cotton said, "I thought I heard you singing up there, it was just beautiful".  He and I talked for awhile about our own backgrounds in acapella music and he said, "I wish I could have been up there to hear you"...so we sang for him again.  He was my favorite kind of audience...glittery eyed and wishing to join in.

As we left he gave us this book...I made him autograph it. I actually think that autograph is my favorite part...it is most certainly my favorite souvenir.

See ya around...