Sha-ZAYUM!

Do you remember that show from the 1960s called Gomer Pyle? It was about the mis-adventures of a young man in the Army, and his favorite exclamation for anything that was surprising, or shocking, or just out of the ordinary and unexpected was “Shazaam!” But he pronounced it sha-zayum because he was from North Carolina, where people are even more hick than they are here in Northwest Arkansas. That might be an sweeping generalization.

Today is the day that my baby daughter goes off to basic training for her career (at least for the next six  years or so) in the U.S. Army. She hasn’t decided if she’ll go regular or reserve or National Guard, and won’t have to make that choice until she’s about to graduate from college. And I have been assured by several people in uniform that she WILL get to graduate from college before she is sent off anywhere with a loaded weapon. I won’t say I was hard to convince, but I will share that her recruiter told her that the meeting with me “Wasn’t as bad as [he’d} expected.” Yeah, I’m that mom.

But I’m that mom because she’s this baby…

Yes, it’s true, I make adorable babies. She inherited that giant dome from me… bless it.

But those adorable babies grow up to have their own babies while still in high school… or they join the Army. I’m still waiting to see what level of Dante’s hell the Boychild will put me through as a teen. Lord help me.

Today we are driving the sweet baby daughter to Little Rock for her intake requirements at the MEPS center. Now, I joined the Army Reserves when I was younger too… but I was 24. I was already way past cute. My mother isn’t here to argue, so I’ll just state that as fact. One day I will have to go back and read her journals around that time and find out what she thought about all that… I made the decision and signed up without discussing it with her first. Yeah, I was that kid.

Side note: Given all that I and my siblings put mom through here on earth (not to mention 11 months of cancer treatment) I’m sure she’s somewhere unbelievably posh in the afterlife. 🙂

At least the Army is putting the baby girl up in a nice hotel (The Peabody!), before they ship her off to North Carolina for six months of 4 a.m. roll calls and 10 minute meals and snot fests at the gas chambers and communal showers. Good times.

So, here are the images I’ll be keeping in my head today. I know they won’t be there for long, and I’ll have to accept that the baby girl has grown up. But today – TODAY, this is what I see.

“Sha-ZAYUM!”

The Bug at 1-year-old. Her dress was worn by her sister, me and my mother in our 1-year-old pictures as well.

At the Fayetteville Farmers’ Market in 1996 or 1997. When her hair finally started growing, it was a sight to behold!

Home again… now, when do we move??

Yeah, hanging out in North Carolina for a week has given me the itch to move.  I haven’t had this itch in quite a while, but the time we spent piddling around in the lovely towns near Asheville have given it to me. 

We had a really nice time visiting local little grocery stores and meeting some local artists and such… and the homes and neighborhoods we drove through were beautiful and there were babbling creeks everywhere. (a babbling creek is a requirement on the property containing the “home of my dreams”) I mean, don’t you think this house needs some TLC?? I’m just the woman to bring it back to life, I just know it.

But, alas, we’re back in Northwest Arkansas – not a bad place to live, by a long shot, but I’m pining for the 84 degree days now that I’m waking up to 94 degrees here.  Ugh.  At least the fires in California have made the sunsets really pretty.

Tuesday follows Monday

We originally planned to visit Chimney Rock Park on our way to a gem mining operation near Marion today, but after spending several hours hiking and taking pictures of nature yesterday for no admission charge, paying $15 each seemed ludicrous.  How many pictures of blue ridges does one actually need, you know? 

Interestingly, though, we did drive by the place on our way (since we went the way the Hubby suggested, rather than the more direct route I had already decided on…).  So, we have pics of the Rock from beneath, where it is decidedly UN-chimney-like in appearance.  And that’s all I’ll say on that subject.  (That’s it on the left in the pic)

We stopped for a picnic lunch at a rest-stop/visitor’s center, saving our precious funds for the adventure ahead – discovering TREASURE!!!  We watched an episode of Cash and Treasures on the Travel Channel that featured a guy named Jerry Call.  He’s a lapidary with connections to the Rio Doce mine in Brazil, and he runs this little mining operation of the same name here in NC.  He is one of only a few qualified lapidaries in the country.  Lapidaries are the people who cut and polish the stones once they’re pulled out of the ground. 

The mine offers several varieties of experiences, starting at $15 for a smaller bucket, and going up to $120 for a big one that also includes two free stone cuttings and guarantees some nice material.  The stuff in the buckets is not fresh out of the ground, but is what rock hounds call “enriched” or “salted”.  At first I thought that would deminish the Fun Quotient, but I was wrong!

We weighed the options and decided to split the $120 bucket between Hubby and I and our girls.  We put the material in two buckets and all went to town.  I have to tell you, the quality of stuff we pulled out was really amazing.  We are definitely going home with rocks that are worth the money we paid, and more.  Not to mention, each of the girls chose a stone to have cut and polished, and we paid another $40 to do one for me.  We have some fine pieces of pink opal, green tourmaline, garnet, emeralds, smokey quartz, rose quartz, regular quartz, golden citrine, amazonite, dalmation… and I can’t remember all the rest.  Some are worth cutting into facets, and many others will make great cabochons.

Funny story:  Griffin was being a VERY patient boy, and as I was going through our goodies I let him hold a rock.  It was a Canary Citrine, and was a nice big piece and very clear.  As I inspected the rest, I didn’t notice that he’d wandered off, and the next thing I knew he had tossed it into the sluice right by the drain and it was gone.  I hoped that when we went in to have the folks at the mine inspect our haul they would tell me that wasn’t a valuable piece, but to the contrary – when she saw the smaller one we had, our inspector was most appreciative and told us this was a very special stone.  Figures.

Luck was on our side, because when we told her what happened she laughed and said they could retrieve the stone for us and cut it if we want to use it as one of our free cuts.  Since she seemed to think it was one of the best things we found, we told her to go for it.  Delaney picked a garnet (her birthstone) and Kelsey chose a green opal that will be cut in a cabochon.  My mom (a rock fan from way back who threw a lot of “pretty” gravel in her keepers pile) found a lot of nice stuff as well in her $30 bucket, and chose a rutilated quartz to have cut.  All in all, a great visit, and definitely worth the money.

We stopped for some yummy mexican food in Tryon at a restaurant called El Chile Rojo, stuffed ourselves, and came back to the house to recover.  Tomorrow we’re doing the Biltmore tour… a little less strenuous, and not as much time on the road.  Yay!

Monday in North Carolina

I forgot to mention in the first vacation post that there was quite a bit of fishing done yesterday evening.  We have instructions from the property owners to catch as many Bluegill and Crappie fish as we can because they eat up all the minnows and it makes it harder to catch nice sized trout and bass.  So between Rick, Kelsey and Griffin (who mostly just helped) we hauled in 12 fish!  I was feeling bad about keeping fish we won’t eat, but then this morning we woke to find half of our take was gone – the late-night snacks of some local turtles and raccoons, no doubt.  I don’t feel as bad if they’re feeding the food chain as I would if we were just throwing them in the woods. 

So, today was our “down-time” day, right?  I believe I made that pretty clear in my last post.  Well, you know about well-laid plans and all that, I’m sure.

This morning I figured Mom and I might get up and go down the road a few miles to the little village of Tryon to investigate some antique shops and an architectural salvage place we saw as we drove around yesterday.  That way, the kids could swim and the hubby could do whatever hubby wanted to do… but instead, we all piled into the van and headed to Tryon.

We stopped at a fantastic shop called Simply Irresistible that was next to a metal forging business.  The shop was run by a woman who paints tiles and other items, and she features local artists as well – many of whom recycle and repurpose trash to create their pieces.  I was totally inspired!  The girls were busy outside taking pictures of some of the things lying around in the yard, and got some great shots.

We ate lunch at a pizza place that the owners of the lake house recommended and it was great.  Aside from some teenaged drama, we got through it pretty well and had some yummy leftovers to show for it.

Then, this afternoon (still a “down-time” day, remember) we thought we’d take a short drive northwest to some waterfalls we found online.  It was close to 4pm by the time we got on the road… a little later than I would have planned… but this was the day to have no plans, so I guess it worked.  The kids waded in a great swimming hole at Hooker Falls.  Funny how that name reminds me of the Motel 6 in south Nashville… Then we hiked for-EVER up to the rest of the falls.  It was gorgeous!  Lucky for us, the weather was cooperating nicely.  The forest was thick and green with native hydrangeas and rhododendrons everywhere. 

I have to say here that Griffin was a truly big boy today!  He ate like a horse at lunch, then on our hike he only gave out at the very end.  Mommy was happy to pack him out at that point. I needed to work off that pizza.

Tomorrow we hit the gem mines for our first of two visits.  I’m sure I’ll have tales of happy hijinx to share tomorrow evening… and a dollar amount of the value of our haul.  Oh, and we have that lottery ticket still sitting in the car that’s worth $25 Million…

VAY-CAY!!

Friday morning at 6:00 a.m. we loaded kids, food, clothes, some reading materials and the must-have electronics into the van and headed east.  Saturday evening around 5:00 p.m. we arrived at a lovely cabin on a lake 30 minutes or so outside of Asheville, N.C.

We stayed in a Motel 6 in the ‘hood in south Nashville Friday night. The mattresses were about as comfy as something you’d find… well, in the ‘hood of south Nashville.  I have to say, though, the pool was crystal clear and warm and the fact that we were directly below the approach pattern for the Nashville airport was a big plus as far as the 3-year-old was concerned.  We just chose to find it “quaint” that a woman at the pool set up an appointment with a couple of *ahem* gentlemen in room _____ for later that evening.  Oh, and the guy that hung over the 2nd story railing in front of his room all evening went to bed by midnight… so maybe he wasn’t really a drug dealer or a pimp or something… he was probably a neighborhood watch representative.

Vacations are for seeing things you don’t see at home, right??

Before we left Tennesee, we made sure to buy lottery numbers for Saturday night’s drawing, but we haven’t checked them yet.  If you have heard that the winning numbers were bought in a gas station in Eastern Tennesee and the winner hasn’t come forward yet, let me know!

As soon as we got to the house we made ourselves at home nosing around the property.  The kids and Rick headed for the water and the girls jumped in the paddle boats.  After about 2.73 minutes they decided that was way too much work, so they headed back to the dock.  Mom and I found blackberries and started picking.  Now we need to make some cobbler…

So we started the week in N.C. today with a road trip to Grandfather Mountain to the site of the 53rd annual Scottish Highlands Games.  Unfortunately, we spent an extra half-hour on the raod due to some direction and navigation mix-ups, and were only there about another half-hour before the lovely Carolina skies opened up and drenched us.  But before we all got soaked running back to the shuttle bus pickup site, we got to see a wide variety of characters wearing kilts and other bits of tartan.  We also followed the sound of drums and music to a little grove where a concert stage had been set up and the final set was being played by the Killdares, Barley Juice, and Coyote Run.  The piper from Coyote Run was wearing a Mother Grove shirt that said “Kilt Rock” on the back – it was great and I want one.  If you haven’t heard any of these bands, you need to go find them right now.  Don’t even finish reading this blog!

Well, maybe you could finish reading… but then, definitely go find them!!!

The cabin we’re in and the lake and property it sets on was won in a poker game.  It’s full of all kinds of interesting little things.  There’s a collection of models of tall-mast sailing ships, some antique photos of someone’s family, a hornet’s nest hanging from the living room light fixture (made from a wagon wheel).  All the comforts of home, really.  The master bedroom looks over the lake, there’s a hot tub on the deck, and there are paddle boats.  What more could we need?

Tomorrow we’re going to have a “down-time” day to run around a little, or just swim and fish, then we have some gem-mining and touristy things to do.  I’ll keep you posted, and photos will be joining the party soon!