Heather: Alright, I know this event started on Sunday but I'll start at the begincement for US, which was actually Thursday. Because the Sheens never do anything simple if they can make it complicated.
Raquelle: *looks melancholy* So true, so true.
Heather: On Thursday, we left for a Civil War reenactment in Sacramento, KY. We had a lovely time except for the heat. On Sunday afternoon, packing up was carried out in 95 degree temperatures with heavy humidity. Packing up involves taking down and putting away two tents, three canvas tent flies, 8 heavy wooden chairs, a bunch of heavy wooden tables, and sundry stools, tubs, tarps, and TONS of Civil War engineering equipment. It was MISERABLE.
Raquelle: Let's be clear. Packing all this stuff up takes a minimum of two hours, even when things are going well. When things are hot and we are tired, it's worse. And the worst part of it is all the STUFF that gets FLUNG into the VAN and it becomes an EPIC disorganized JUNGLE. You could get lost in there and never make it out!
Reenacting stuff alone is bad enough. Add it to our luggage, bedding, costumes, and sound system for the HSA reunion and..........well...........we took two cars on the trip because Dad was actually concerned about overloading the van. It was literally almost to the ceiling.........and no, there's no back seat, just four captain's chairs. The ENTIRE back of the van was STUFFED.
And disorganized.
Heather: So when we finally got on the road, we were HOT and TIRED. We staggered into the first McDonalds we found for some mocha frappes (our family's latest craze) and also stopped for supper. This meant that we arrived at the entrance to Falls Creek Falls State Park in Tennessee at around 8:30 pm.
Raquelle: No, I think it was 9:30.
Heather: Whatever. The key word there is "entrance." Not the lodge where we were staying, just the entrance.
The rest of this narrative will be delivered in our usual style of highlights and lowlights. Ahem.
Highlight: Finding the entrance to Falls Creek Falls State Park.
Lowlight: Driving... and driving... and driving...and not finding the Group Lodge (where Raquelle and I were staying) or the Park Inn (where Mom and Dad were staying).
Exceedingly dim light: Driving... and driving... and driving... with a heavily loaded van pulling a heavily loaded trailer full of heavy reenactment stuff. Those dratted mountain roads were steep... and let's not even mention the hair-raising hairpin turns!
Pitch black light*: Trying to read the signs in the dark every time we came to a turnoff or fork in the road. Dad was in the lead in his car and he would suddenly see a sign and slam on the brakes to read it in his headlights. Mom and I were following in the van (did I mention it was heavily loaded and pulling a heavily loaded trailer?) and slamming on the brakes was... um... interesting. Finally we pulled off and Raquelle hopped in Dad's car to help him navigate. We had walkie talkies and it sounded something like this:
Raquelle: That sign wasn't it.
Mom: Don't slam on your brakes like that!
Raquelle: That wasn't it either.
Mom: Remember, I have a TRAILER back here!
Raquelle: Watch out for the deer!
Mom: Are we THERE yet?
*Is a "pitch black light" an oxymoron?
Raquelle:
Highlight: Finally finding the Park Inn.
Lowlight: Waiting five minutes while the desk clerks milled around with paperwork and ignored us. When they finally did notice us, we asked where the HSA group was located and received a blank stare. "Um.........." the clerk stared at a list and shook her head blandly. "Nothing like that here."
"How about the organizer's name?" I asked desperately, stifling an impulse to jump up and down and throw things.
"Um................Debi Reynolds?" she inquired languidly.
"YES!" I nodded vigorously.
She told us where to go and drew us a kindofsortof outline on a map. Then she registered Mom and Dad's room.
"Do you want a patio room or a balcony room?" she asked Dad.
Dad, who was also resisting an impulse to jump up and down and throw things, longsufferingly said he didn't care.
"Well, which should I give you?" she pressed.
"What's the difference?" he asked.
She gave him a long-winded explanation and again asked which he wanted, as though it was the decision of the century.
"I'll take a balcony room," he said wearily.
The clerk busily clicked a bunch of buttons on her computer. "I don't have any balcony rooms available," she announced.
So why did she OFFER it? Oh plz. And think, people like this get to vote. Oh well, we'll give her the benefit of the doubt and blame it on the computer system.
Heather:
Highlight: Dad and I went over and looked at the big park map on the wall. Have you ever left a pile of string on the floor and let some kittens play with it? That's sorta how all the roads looked on the map. However, we figured out a tentative route however and decided to try it.
Highlight: Dropping the trailer at the Inn. Now we just had a heavily loaded van to deal with. Much better.
Lowlight: Driving for another 20 minutes, repeating the same process listed above.
Highlight: Finally seeing a sign that actually had "Group Lodge 2" on it!! We took the road and found the lodge within minutes. Yipppeee!
Raquelle: Actually, that's not true. We saw a sign that just said "Group Lodge" because from that direction they don't bother telling you whether it's #1 or #2. We thought it was the OTHER Group Lodge and went right past it and ended out on the highway again and had to turn around. Dang. Dad and I were muttering darkly about stewpid state parks with stewpid signage. This is not the first time we have encountered stewpid things like this at stewpid state parks. I'd like to know who the brainiacs are that design these things anyway.
Heather:
Highlight: Seeing real live bodies of real live people at the lodge. Some kind folks (whom I didn't recognize in the dark) helped us unload all our JUNK. This was rather difficult since we had to sort through the reenactment stuff versus the TN Gathering stuff. We eventually got it all unloaded and trucked to our bunks.
Highlight: We had been saved two corner bunks! This gave us a nice cubby hole in the back of the room to spread out our culch pile. Everybody needs a tiny kingdom to call their own in the girl's dorm.
Highlight: Making my bed, which included opening my sleeping bag and plopping my pillow on it.
Lowlight: Making Raquelle's bed, which included layers of sheets, blankets and afghans, not to mention pillowcases. Some people like to make life complicated.
Raquelle: I don't LIKE sleeping bags. There's no possibility of temperature control. You're either IN it and too hot, or OUT of it and too cold. Blankets provide much more flexibility.
Heather:
Lowlight: I wasn't feeling well.
Highlight: It was pure heaven to crawl into my warm sleeping bag and CRASH.
Thus endeth Sunday.
Raquelle: For you, maybe. That's because you weren't feeling great when we were breaking down the reenacting stuff and YOU got to spend half the time in the air-conditioned van eating chocolate, while I was working. *sniff*
Heather: Oh yeah, it was so great moaning and groaning in the van while you guys got to do something productive towards getting us OUT of there. And I was NOT eating chocolate. Just cheese bunnies.
Raquelle: Cheese bunnies, schmeeze bunnies.
Highlight: Taking a shower and getting the cannon smoke out of my hair.
Highlight: Chatting with the other late-night prinking girls while curling my hair. You find out all sorts of confidential secrets late at night.
Lowlight: Getting hungry and being too tired to roust out a snack from my snack stash.
Lowlight: Going to bed very late and getting a second wind and staying pop-eyed till about 3:00 a.m.
Highlight: Finally falling asleep.
THUS endeth Sunday. Get it STRAIGHT.
Raquelle: *looks melancholy* So true, so true.
Heather: On Thursday, we left for a Civil War reenactment in Sacramento, KY. We had a lovely time except for the heat. On Sunday afternoon, packing up was carried out in 95 degree temperatures with heavy humidity. Packing up involves taking down and putting away two tents, three canvas tent flies, 8 heavy wooden chairs, a bunch of heavy wooden tables, and sundry stools, tubs, tarps, and TONS of Civil War engineering equipment. It was MISERABLE.
Raquelle: Let's be clear. Packing all this stuff up takes a minimum of two hours, even when things are going well. When things are hot and we are tired, it's worse. And the worst part of it is all the STUFF that gets FLUNG into the VAN and it becomes an EPIC disorganized JUNGLE. You could get lost in there and never make it out!
Reenacting stuff alone is bad enough. Add it to our luggage, bedding, costumes, and sound system for the HSA reunion and..........well...........we took two cars on the trip because Dad was actually concerned about overloading the van. It was literally almost to the ceiling.........and no, there's no back seat, just four captain's chairs. The ENTIRE back of the van was STUFFED.
And disorganized.
Heather: So when we finally got on the road, we were HOT and TIRED. We staggered into the first McDonalds we found for some mocha frappes (our family's latest craze) and also stopped for supper. This meant that we arrived at the entrance to Falls Creek Falls State Park in Tennessee at around 8:30 pm.
Raquelle: No, I think it was 9:30.
Heather: Whatever. The key word there is "entrance." Not the lodge where we were staying, just the entrance.
The rest of this narrative will be delivered in our usual style of highlights and lowlights. Ahem.
Highlight: Finding the entrance to Falls Creek Falls State Park.
Lowlight: Driving... and driving... and driving...and not finding the Group Lodge (where Raquelle and I were staying) or the Park Inn (where Mom and Dad were staying).
Exceedingly dim light: Driving... and driving... and driving... with a heavily loaded van pulling a heavily loaded trailer full of heavy reenactment stuff. Those dratted mountain roads were steep... and let's not even mention the hair-raising hairpin turns!
Pitch black light*: Trying to read the signs in the dark every time we came to a turnoff or fork in the road. Dad was in the lead in his car and he would suddenly see a sign and slam on the brakes to read it in his headlights. Mom and I were following in the van (did I mention it was heavily loaded and pulling a heavily loaded trailer?) and slamming on the brakes was... um... interesting. Finally we pulled off and Raquelle hopped in Dad's car to help him navigate. We had walkie talkies and it sounded something like this:
Raquelle: That sign wasn't it.
Mom: Don't slam on your brakes like that!
Raquelle: That wasn't it either.
Mom: Remember, I have a TRAILER back here!
Raquelle: Watch out for the deer!
Mom: Are we THERE yet?
*Is a "pitch black light" an oxymoron?
Raquelle:
Highlight: Finally finding the Park Inn.
Lowlight: Waiting five minutes while the desk clerks milled around with paperwork and ignored us. When they finally did notice us, we asked where the HSA group was located and received a blank stare. "Um.........." the clerk stared at a list and shook her head blandly. "Nothing like that here."
"How about the organizer's name?" I asked desperately, stifling an impulse to jump up and down and throw things.
"Um................Debi Reynolds?" she inquired languidly.
"YES!" I nodded vigorously.
She told us where to go and drew us a kindofsortof outline on a map. Then she registered Mom and Dad's room.
"Do you want a patio room or a balcony room?" she asked Dad.
Dad, who was also resisting an impulse to jump up and down and throw things, longsufferingly said he didn't care.
"Well, which should I give you?" she pressed.
"What's the difference?" he asked.
She gave him a long-winded explanation and again asked which he wanted, as though it was the decision of the century.
"I'll take a balcony room," he said wearily.
The clerk busily clicked a bunch of buttons on her computer. "I don't have any balcony rooms available," she announced.
So why did she OFFER it? Oh plz. And think, people like this get to vote. Oh well, we'll give her the benefit of the doubt and blame it on the computer system.
Heather:
Highlight: Dad and I went over and looked at the big park map on the wall. Have you ever left a pile of string on the floor and let some kittens play with it? That's sorta how all the roads looked on the map. However, we figured out a tentative route however and decided to try it.
Highlight: Dropping the trailer at the Inn. Now we just had a heavily loaded van to deal with. Much better.
Lowlight: Driving for another 20 minutes, repeating the same process listed above.
Highlight: Finally seeing a sign that actually had "Group Lodge 2" on it!! We took the road and found the lodge within minutes. Yipppeee!
Raquelle: Actually, that's not true. We saw a sign that just said "Group Lodge" because from that direction they don't bother telling you whether it's #1 or #2. We thought it was the OTHER Group Lodge and went right past it and ended out on the highway again and had to turn around. Dang. Dad and I were muttering darkly about stewpid state parks with stewpid signage. This is not the first time we have encountered stewpid things like this at stewpid state parks. I'd like to know who the brainiacs are that design these things anyway.
Heather:
Highlight: Seeing real live bodies of real live people at the lodge. Some kind folks (whom I didn't recognize in the dark) helped us unload all our JUNK. This was rather difficult since we had to sort through the reenactment stuff versus the TN Gathering stuff. We eventually got it all unloaded and trucked to our bunks.
Highlight: We had been saved two corner bunks! This gave us a nice cubby hole in the back of the room to spread out our culch pile. Everybody needs a tiny kingdom to call their own in the girl's dorm.
Highlight: Making my bed, which included opening my sleeping bag and plopping my pillow on it.
Lowlight: Making Raquelle's bed, which included layers of sheets, blankets and afghans, not to mention pillowcases. Some people like to make life complicated.
Raquelle: I don't LIKE sleeping bags. There's no possibility of temperature control. You're either IN it and too hot, or OUT of it and too cold. Blankets provide much more flexibility.
Heather:
Lowlight: I wasn't feeling well.
Highlight: It was pure heaven to crawl into my warm sleeping bag and CRASH.
Thus endeth Sunday.
Raquelle: For you, maybe. That's because you weren't feeling great when we were breaking down the reenacting stuff and YOU got to spend half the time in the air-conditioned van eating chocolate, while I was working. *sniff*
Heather: Oh yeah, it was so great moaning and groaning in the van while you guys got to do something productive towards getting us OUT of there. And I was NOT eating chocolate. Just cheese bunnies.
Raquelle: Cheese bunnies, schmeeze bunnies.
Highlight: Taking a shower and getting the cannon smoke out of my hair.
Highlight: Chatting with the other late-night prinking girls while curling my hair. You find out all sorts of confidential secrets late at night.
Lowlight: Getting hungry and being too tired to roust out a snack from my snack stash.
Lowlight: Going to bed very late and getting a second wind and staying pop-eyed till about 3:00 a.m.
Highlight: Finally falling asleep.
THUS endeth Sunday. Get it STRAIGHT.
1 comment:
Again, I like the use of lolcats as illustrations. :)
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