Friday, August 01, 2008

Thursday

(Why do they still do "Shark Week?" Have we not yet learned all the important stuff about sharks?)

Yesterday we drove southeast through Ohio and down through West Virginia, cutting across the tip of Virginia and down to Greenville, Tennessee (home of Confederate States of America Vice President Andrew Johnson--I hope I'm right since I haven't verified that yet). The kids didn't seem much interested in the impromptu history lesson I gave when we drove into town. In their defense, we HAD been driving in the van for almost eight hours and everyone was pretty testy.

They had spent their time watching eight "Daisy & Donald" cartoons and all of "Scooby Doo and the Monster of Mexico" videos while we drove. (I think they had watched that one about twelve times prior to yesterday, but they still find things to like about it.) I, of course want the kids to watch movies that "I" find interesting, but I'm not in charge.

[BTW, Sarah is giving me the sour face right now since she's sitting in my lap at the hotel lobby reading this as I type it. She doesn't like me making jokes about her movies.]

When I wrote all of this down, it was 11:15 pm and I scrawled my notes sitting in the room while ocean waves rolled out of our CD player and the three girls slept in their beds. I had to sit by the window and try to see what I was writing via the feeble light coming from the parking lot lights outside through the partially curtained window in our hotel room. Lynda is in the lobby catching up with aunts and uncles and cousins. All of the oldest cousins are probably in their rooms getting their children to bed (like me) while the college-aged ones might be downstairs playing a game or trying to figure out what they should do with themselves.

The drive down was pretty nice overall, though we had a fair bit of rain through Virginia. The West Virginia roads--all Interstate--where still back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. It got to be tiresome. But the mountains were very pretty. I found it amazing that there are still lots of trees through there, especially right up to the Interstate.

I need to find time to write a book today and also a board game, since at the moment, the only entertainment I've got is to scribble in the gloom or do push ups in the dark. Either option makes me seem like a survivalist holed up against the coming Zombie apocalypse. [Sarah just whispered to me that I "could" go swimming, which is very true, as long as it doesn't rain on us.]

On trips I face the travellers dilemma of carrying a camera around (no case though), usually stuffed in a pocket of my shorts. But I HATE carrying it around as it makes me seem a shutterbug doofus. So, I don't usually take lots of pictures and that isn't a good thing. I need to get an iPhone so I can take pictures, blog, and have everything in a compact form that I'd be glad to carry around.

I forgot to explain that when I wrote this I was sitting in the dark because I couldn't watch the TV--not that much was on probably--but that is one of the tragedies of kids in a hotel is that when the kids go to sleep the parents are trapped. Can't go out and so they just have to go to sleep. You can't turn the TV on because the light from the enormous screen would wake them up. So you end up scribbling your manifesto in the parking lot half-light and then you give up and go to bed.

But not before you go and do more pushups.

4 comments:

David said...

I was wrong (so wrong) about Andrew Johnson as VP of the CSA. I'm sorry . . .

Johnson was, of course, president prior to Lincoln. So, I was in the right era, but on the wrong side.

I guess I didn't read all those Civil War books carefully enough.

Mea culpa.

Anonymous said...

Dude, he was president after Lincoln

David said...

History discussions have NO place on this blog. I am done with it.

On with the vacationing fun.

Anonymous said...

Love you, David