We decided to drive north and visit the Natural Tunnel State Park this morning. Our pastor, John, had recommended it (as had several other folks), and so we stopped at Pal's on our way out of town and got biscuits and gravy (MeeMaw) and a country ham biscuit (PeePaw) and two sweet teas.
We got there pretty quickly; there was no traffic, probably due to the holiday. We stopped at the picnic area and ate our breakfast while fighting off clouds of aggressive gnats. Then we drove around the park for a bit. There is a pretty fair-sized campground there, and we cruised through it. Wall-to-wall campers and RVs with sullen-faced children sitting outside playing hand-held video games. The kids who were actually moving around were doing so in a desultory fashion on bicycles. Adults in various stages of rumpled readiness sat around with cell phones, monitoring their childrens' activities. I remarked to MeeMaw that I couldn't for the life of me understand why someone would choose to spend his vacation in such a way. It would make just as much sense to say, "Hey, family. For vacation this year, we're renting an apartment. That's right, a cramped apartment in a complex where we'll be shimmed right up next to a bunch of other folks, and we'll get to listen to all their family drama during our waking hours, and we'll get to smell garbage and auto exhaust as we try to sleep at night. Let's get packed!"
Once we left the campground, we went to the chair-lift place, right beside the visitor's center. We strolled over to see how much it would cost, remembering that it costs twenty stinkin' bucks for the two of us to ride the one at Gatlinburg. Today was a good day to be at Natural Tunnel State Park. It was customer appreciation day, and everything was free. So...we saved the normal chair-lift fair of three bucks per person (in addition to the parking fee, which I forgot to mention).
We climbed on the lift and rode it down a very steep hill to the tunnel itself. While exploring down there, we heard a train whistle and a rumble. MeeMaw's wish came true; she had wanted to see a train go through the tunnel, and here came one.
We walked across a footbridge after the train passed, and we looked at an original log cabin constructed by the Carter family (yes, that Carter family) in the 1700's. Then we climbed back on the chair-lift and returned to the parking lot and headed back.
I took, of all things, a two hour nap after we got home. It just seemed to be the thing to do. I'll probably regret it tonight and be awake at the wrong time. But it was luxurious at the time. Then we had grilled steaks, mashed potatoes, and asparagus spears for supper. After we ate, I called Mother and talked to her. She was in pretty good spirits, largely due to her having thrown a bedpan at a recalcitrant nurse. These are the reasons I have never thought I was anyone's son other than Mother's. We handle delicate problems in the same delicate way.
It's still humid outside, and this day has passed forever into history.
