January 25-27
Well. Where to start? The sea sickness I experienced on the houseboat? The dirt and dust that caused mine and Josh's allergies to explode? Oh, I know! How about when I nearly killed my grandfather?
I suppose the place to begin is the beginning. We left Hilton Head fairly early and got on the road. Hilton Head was nice, but mainly just 2 days of not really doing anything. Except to freeze on the beach. It was a mostly uneventful drive, and we were happy to get there around 2. Mom had called my grandfather at 1 - he and his dog, ChiChi, joined us at the boat and spent the night. It was great to see him.
He brought tons of food for us to eat. We barbequed on the boat the first night with the steaks he brought. Quite nice. But I'm ahead of myself.
Like I said, he brought tons of food. We were on a boat, and there was no good way to get down to the dock. The stairs were uneven and steep and the ramp was steeper. Dad was getting a huge tour from the boat lady and mom was busy with Josh, so I went back up with Grandpa to get his food. We got up okay. He grabbed ChiChi's pillow and his radio, and I grabbed several bags of food. I asked which he preferred and we started down the steps. About two steps down, from the corner of my eye, I see him lurch forward and grab wildly for me, but I was too far ahead. As I watched, horrified and frozen, he tumbled HEAD FIRST down the steep STONE STAIRS and finally came to a rest down near the bottom. He had rolled off the stairs and down the grass hill next to it and was head down. I screamed as loudly as I could for mom and dad and dad again as I dropped everything and raced down. But even though it wasn't very far, no one could hear me. I swear, all I could think was, "Oh, my God, I killed my grandfather." Or at least severely broke him. Pretty much all he has are bones and skin. But he stirred at my second piercing scream and I helped him turn so his feet were down and he could slide onto the step. Can you believe he scraped his hands and arms and that's IT! Of course, he was already getting stiff by the time he walked back at the boat, but nothing broken. Scared the living daylights out of me.
Of course, the fact that I alone could feel every sway and lunge of the boat and was so dizzy I went to bed at 8 didn't help make the night shine, either. I took a lot of my homeopathic pills for motion sickness, let me tell you. <.g>
Wednesday was fabulous, though. My friend MA lives outside of Atlanta, and drove to the boat. We chatted with my mom for awhile, and then she took me to Historic Downtown Buford. We were stunned to see it was a whole 3 blocks - we had figured at 1. <.g> The tea place, with Gone with the Wind room, we had planned to go to was only open Thursday-Sunday, which was annoying, but we found this great little bistro down the block. The server was very conscientous and extremely cute and adorable and sweet. He got a very nice tip. <.g> Then we headed over to the Mall of Georgia, which I loved. There's a Hummer store there, only it used to be a FAO Schwartz, and they left the giant metal teddy bear outside of the store! I loved it. And the mall inside was nice - we visited the Thomas Kinkade gallery, which I enjoyed, and a store called Fandom which amused me greatly, and randomly walked through a few stores.
MA and I have known each other for nearly 10 years now from an online list. We met once before in Chesapeake with a few others in our online group, back in 2001, and this was our second meeting. I had such an incredibly wonderful time. Overall, we chatted and laughed and had a fabulous time the whole afternoon. I am so glad we met up! It was wonderful.
When I got back, it was time for my grandfather to leave. I hadn't expected that, and didn't have any time to visit, really. I was sick and freaked out Tuesday night, and then out most of Wednesday. We got nice pictures, though, and we hope to see him in the summer.
We got up super super early today, 6am et, hoping to get ready to leave at 8. We were ready, but no one was there!!! We waited around for 45 minutes before leaving a note. Then, Grandpa had given us an alternate route so we could see Stone Mountain and the carvings there. We saw the mountain, but from a distance and not the carvings, and it somehow added an extra 2 hours to the drive. 2 hours to leave Atlanta. That set the tone for the day. We drove across Georiga, across Alabama, arched through northern Mississippi, and got to Memphis at 5 ct. It was by far our worst driving day. Josh is on overload - for an hour, all we heard was, "I'M FURIOUS! WOLF ROAD NOW PLEASE. HOME. READY TO STOP. GO!" He's cranky and unhappy and misses his house and his bed and his things. Plus, like I mentioned earlier, the boat was dirty and because it was in the 60s, allergies were aggravated both indoor and out for us. All of this put the rest of us on edge, too, which made the drive through Mississippi feel longer than it was.
So, here we are in Memphis, our last stop. We're downtown, right by the Pyramid. Tomorrow, we'll hit Graceland, Sun Studios, and a horse and carriage ride down to Beale Street. Then, Saturday, we drive home. 8 hours. In which it is said it will ice storm. Yay.
The big sadness - no TV on the houseboat. I missed Gilmore Girls. It's tragic! It'll be the first thing I do when we get everything settled at home Saturday night. ;)
