THURSDAY
June 19
I could not connect inside the cabin last night, so I am up bright and early and at the picnic table outside the cabin. I can connect here alright-for $3 and hour or $8 a day.
The is the worst KOA I have ever been to, it is HUGE, hundreds of sites and while many are open, the tent site UNDER my window has a very active family with small children who scream a good deal during the night. And charging for internet on top of charging $20 more a night for a cabin than any other place out there! You can bet I am not using that when I finally upload all of this, I will likely be in town at an Atlanta Bread Company where I can get a bowl of soup for my 3 bucks or heck-next door at the trailer park. Somebody has free wi-fi.
I can hear construction noise that is all but drowning out the bird calls and totally cancels what I could hear of the stream earlier. Between the screamers and their parents, who all stare as they pass me going to the bath house now as if I had picked this cabin just to...I don't know sleep higher than them? Like I was evil anyway.
Oh, and the cabins have no climate control, so I nearly froze all night. There is a little grassy spot across from the cabin and every AARP member with a dustmop dog has been over there, even though there is an island somewhere on the vast KOA estate JUST for dogs to run around on.
I guess I feel better, having vented and all. And there is a jumping pillow and a hot tub, I just hope we can squeeze in to get to use them! This is a really busy and packed place, loads of kids on bikes and of course kids that scream and they just walked past the table again, close enough to bump it and gave ME a dirty look. Have I mentioned how I dislike other people in places I want to enjoy?
On to the day:
I am not sure what we are doing as a group. I know that yesterday, 4 of
the 7 kids at some point were squalling to go home. Chandler and Emily
at dinner, Ben took off running back to Alabama and Zachary must have decided
if he could shriek loud enough, maybe the van would transport to his house and
not the cabin. Suzette put a stop to that in a hurry, so really-it might
have worked if he had more time. Regina said Anna wanted to go home the
night before.
Anna cracks me up. She came climbing over yesterday at the falls and sat down next to me and said, "Look at all this stuff, it looks like broken glass, see, there is some in my foot." I said it was mica, a shiny and very flaky rock and showed her where it was sticking to my feet, too. She said, "Okay. It's mica. I had decided if it was glass, I was going to start screaming." hahaha! Like hysterical mother-rousing screaming is something to contemplate a bit and maybe even investigate the background cause before deciding to go through with it or not.
The day before, tubing, we came to our first set of small rapids. She looked at me, eyes twice as big as they were 5 seconds earlier and said, "I don't know what to do!" I said, "Just go with the flow, you will be fine." She slid through the fast part and hopped out at the bottom and went back up and came down again. She did that at every rapid spot, even the one Jon hung around and told her was too dangerous. He guided her raft down and deciding she was safe and with me right there, headed back downstream in his raft. She jumped out and went back up to do it again alone. I said she was doing a great job and she said, "I am tall for my age." Oh! Okay.
Oh, the day improves! The dad of the camping grumps just came over and chatted a while and gave me 4 pieces of hickory wood. Well. : ) I could knock together a frame if I could get a rock and some pine sap to use as glue.
I know in just a few days I will be mowing the yard in the wet nasty heat and gasping for air while sweat drips in my eyes. But golly pete, I am cold right now! AARP number 11 has a dustmop named Cheetah. Cheetah will only stop barking if she picks him up, which blessedly she finally does.
Suzette just came traipsing out in
her bathing suit, heading to the bathhouse. She is not a friendly sort
in the morning, just so you know.
Hey Dave, she made me drive her around
and look at all the RV's in the campground.
She is shopping, I tell you. I think she is gearing up to ask the folks
across the road for a tour of their camper.
Not that it takes much to gear her up.
++++++++++
The kids played chess while they waited for the moms to get ready this morning.
We went to breakfast at a pancake place and everyone perked up. We did the obligatory tourist trap shop and headed back to the cabin.
The kids got in their suits and headed to the pool, where they swam for several hours.
Jake and Jon rented bikes and rode around the campground, then we decided to go tubing.
I took Emily and Chandler with me and we went to Deep Creek and everyone else
stayed here to tube and they swam in the pool more and went to the S' mores
campfire cookout.
We picked up pizza on our way back in and we all pre-packed. Tomorrow
we go home.
Regina's time with us has come to an end, she has to get back early, so she
heads out as soon as she gets up in the morning.
In our cabin, we stayed up late our last night and chatted with each other and then with Dave when he called and later with Suzette's best friend, Anjanette out in Colorado via speaker phone. She had just gotten a tattoo!
I got to retell the story of HOPEFULLY
our last trip trouble-the yellow jacket that got in my grey jacket and stung
me in the shoulder!
At one point this week, I had sprayed my hair and wrists with DEET because I
was being swarmed with gnats. The smell was so overpowering that we had
to drive with the windows down a while. I seriously thought about hauling
out the can again to nail that little so and so for nailing ME before I even
had breakfast. That's a wasp sting AND a fly bite-still have not ruled
out bot fly on that one. We marked the spot and I intend to check it closely.
States for today:
North Carolina