Shots Across The Bow

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

How I Spent My Summer Vacation Yes, I’m back from the beach, and it was a blast! 8 days and seven nights of sun, sand, waves, Frisbee, volleyball, and football. And of course I’m going to share it all with you, my faithful readers.

We Start Our Journey
I started running errands as soon as I got off work Friday morning, so we would be ready to go bright and early Saturday morning. I paid bills, bought groceries and supplies, got the oil changed on my car, and so on, and finally got home around 1:00PM. I crashed for a few hours, then got up to take care of the rest of the preparations. The kids and I had already packed, so all we needed to do was load up the van as soon as Betty (my ex) got home. She got there around 8:00 and we loaded up, then collapsed, only to have my brother call. He wanted us to come over and help him move my parent’s dock out.

My parents live on Douglas Lake, which has the distinction of having one of the largest seasonal changes in depth of any lake in the South. The difference between summer and winter pool depth is somewhere between 30 and 40 feet, and TVA begins lowering the lake shortly after July 4th. In order to keep using the dock we have to move it out about every 2 days, otherwise it gets grounded.

Well, my brother had neglected to move it for several days, and the dock was on the edge of being completely stuck, so we gathered together all our friends and relations, and headed out to move it through the Tennessee red clay back into the water.

At 10:00PM.

In the dark.

The fishermen weren’t impressed.

After we moved the dock, and had it tied down, I went back up to the house, and fixed the AC belt on the van, then went to sleep. We were planning on leaving around 6:00AM, and I wanted at least some sleep before the drive. My brother planned on sleeping just a couple of hours, and leaving around 4:00AM. He wanted to be the first one on the beach, and was willing to pay any price to do it. My son was eager to get there, so he road with his uncle, along with two of his cousins.
We got up the next morning at 0 dark 30 and were on the road by 6:00AM. We took two cars so we would have room for ourselves and our stuff, and headed off through the pre dawn twilight through the Smoky Mountains on our way to Sunny Florida. Driving through the mountains was a little irritating because I had some idiot tailgating me the entire way.

I stopped at the first rest area and told Betty to cut it out.

Richard Hailey, Stock Car Superstar!

I hung in tight on the bumper in front of me. I was in the lead draft and had to protect my position. If I got hung out on the outside, I would get shuffled all the way to the back of the pack and have a ton of ground to make up. Another driver pulled up on my right, and tried to cut in, but I closed the gap denying him the position. He got trapped in slower traffic and fell back out of contention.

Rookies!

I carefully watched the inside line, waiting to make my move. When I saw the conditions were right, I ducked out of the draft and hit the gas and shot past three cars making a bid for the lead. Unfortunately, I was coming up fast on some lapped traffic, and had to cut sharply back into line, short of the lead, but I had improved my position by several cars.

What a rush! My hands gripped the steering wheel with a newfound intensity as I guided my car through the turns and straight-aways. The drivers around me were all strangers; we didn’t know anything about each other, except that fate had thrown us together for a few hours. Yet, we weren’t complete strangers. We had been forged together by speed, gas fumes, and the smell of burning rubber. We held each other’s lives in our hands, each of us forced to trust the others not to make a stupid mistake that could cost us our lives. When you’re in a situation like that, you get to know a lot about a person, even if you never speak directly. A nod can say more than a 10-minute Shakespearean soliloquy. We were brothers, even if only for a short while.

A NASCAR driving school? Heck no! It was I-95 South through Georgia, but by the time I got through to Florida, I was ready to take on Talladega Super Speedway!

The Arrival

Finally, we arrived at our exit off I 95 to Amelia Island. At least, some of us did. We had two different maps, one form mapquest and one from Rand McNally. The maps gave different routes from I-95 to the island. I hadn’t noticed that, so when Betty peeled off an exit early, I was caught by surprise. Of course, she figured I had missed the exit, and I figured that she would get back on the interstate, or continue following her map. I pulled over for a few minutes, and when she didn’t show up, I went on following my map, trusting that we would meet up at the registration desk.

No such luck.

I went on to the house, and met up with my parents, and my sister and her family, but still no van. I waited for about 15 minutes, then went looking for her, retracing what her steps would have been if she followed her map. I went back to the registration house, but no Betty. I drove across the island, but no Betty. I was about to leave the island and head back to the interstate, when I heard a horn behind me. It was Betty. She hadn’t wanted to go into the registration office without me, so she had pulled into a parking lot, and waited for me to drive by, knowing that I would come looking eventually.

So we were all in Florida, safe and sound. Well, not exactly. My younger brother (Remember him? He was the one that was leaving really early so he could be the first one on the beach.) He still wasn’t there. Turns out that he slept in and didn’t leave until a little after 9:00AM. So much for being the first on the beach! While we were waiting on him, we all went out onto the beach, and splashed in the waves. It was high tide and there was a wicked undertow from an offshore storm that nearly knocked me off my feet when the water was only knee deep. The kids loved it. My brother finally showed up around 6:00, and we decided to get some dinner.

We were tired from the drive, and instead of shopping for groceries and cooking a meal, we went out for a traditional Florida dinner of pulled pork barbeque, ribs, slaw, and hushpuppies. OK, so it wasn’t traditional. But it was good. We lazed around for an hour or so, and then it was time for bed. We had a busy day planned for tomorrow.

To be continued….

Posted by Rich at August 12, 2002 2:59 PM