hannah and caroline and me
(part thirty-six)


vacation.

friday, sarah and i drove to a chalet in pigeon forge. the first night, we had driven close to five hours to partake in two activities we very well could have found on chalkville mountain road. dinner at cracker barrel then a movie. the theater we saw inception in was hilariously outdated. it felt like the lobby of the old center point cinema six back before center point was the dollar movie destination. the theater's capacity was 85 compared with the 310 or so of the biggest trussville auditoriums. four of those 85 seats were out of order. we weren't sure why. they were covered in plastic, so any number of things could have happened. in my mind, i went with quadruple homicide. the movie experience, itself, wasn't that bad. the picture was fine. the sound was loud enough. the story was fantastic. that we drove five hours to find ourselves fifteen years back in time, well, we just found it funny.

saturday, we found more adventure. we spent a couple hours in a truly epic titanic exhibit that didn't celebrate the tragedy as much as it did the stories of those onboard. it was really well done and i can totally see a september 11th "attraction" 50 or 75 years down the road that will be equally tasteful and a fitting reminder that it's never about what happened as much as it is finding meaning in what happened. after titanic, which was preceded by our first of two trips to smoky mountain brewery, we headed to gatlinburg proper. i forgot how much the strip felt like one big carnival. all the storefronts have the same charm as the booths of any traveling fair. the attractions look second class from the outside, but, if you pay money for one of them, chances are you'll find yourself having a first class time. we ate at hard rock and then went to walgreen's. that's right, walgreen's. we redboxed a movie and bought yahtzee to take back to the cabin because i had been craving the game for a couple weeks. there is a walgreen's and two redboxes on chalkville mountain road.

sunday was nice and relaxing. we found the best french onion soup either of us had ever had. we stuffed our face and then went back to the cabin to watch precious. it was a severely depressing look into the poverty stricken world of a 16 year old, overweight, still in middle school girl. she delivered the second of two children fathered by her father during the movie. we saw that the first was born with down's syndrome. the second one is healthy. the mom is abusive. precious finds out towards the end of the movie that she is hiv positive. it was a real pick me up. well-done, but a downer for sure. after the movie, we went back out to find ice cream, mini-golf and beer and wings to close out our weekend, three of four we could've found on chalkville mountain road.

we drove five hours home to birmingham yesterday and ate lunch on chalkville mountain road at waffle house. we weren't very far into the trip when i started pining for the girls. perhaps it was precious, perhaps it was being away from them for the longest time in a while. perhaps it was other things. whatever it was, i missed them. badly. it was a good thing to get away for a while, even if we could have saved a whole lot of money by staying at the comfort inn down the road. in the long run, though, i think we both agreed that our next trip would include the girls, not finding a way to leave them behind.

we picked them up early for them from daycare and we all got back home a little before three yesterday afternoon. i exercised and the girls napped or lounged around on the couches. we had a nice family dinner around the kitchen table and, after, the girls started yelling at each other and i ended up spanking hannah for some serious not-following-directions.

yep. we were back. not that spankings happen every night. or dinner around the table. but we were back together. back pushing each other's buttons. back sharing space, sometimes comfortably, sometimes reluctantly. back being upset and making up later with hugs and time on the couch. back laughing at each other and with each other. back being family.

going on vacation was nice.

it's good to be back.