Going Away and Coming Back

So we're back from Chattanooga and it was a good trip. I think I may have enjoyed the drive up and back as much as the actual trip, but that's because (a) I didn't do any of the driving, and (b) I got to read out loud from one of my favorite books the whole journey. The book I was reading was Handling Sin by Michael Malone and if you haven't read it, I suggest you do because it's five hundred and something pages of pure, unadulterated rollicking good times. It's about a middle-aged man, stuck in a deeper rut than I'll ever be who is handed a mission by his crazy father and who, because his inheritance is involved, is forced to accept it and of course his life is changed in countless and terrific ways.
Good reading for a woman afraid of being a prisoner of her own sweet life.
I've probably read the book at least three times over the years but it's nice to be reminded that life is infinitely interesting if chances are taken and roads are explored. And so forth.
I love to read out loud. I miss reading to my children and thankfully, my husband doesn't mind at all if I read to him while he drives. I get to do all the voices and Handling Sin has a rich plethora of voices to read. Reading out loud satisfies a few of my loves- reading, of course, and the joy I feel when I "perform", which is what reading out loud is, if you do it right.
So the drives were fine and our room was lovely. Everyone we met in Chattanooga just could not have been nicer, from the guy who helped us with our luggage to the hotel manager that I shared the elevator with on the day we left. When he asked me if everything had been good during our stay, I told him that mainly, yes, everything had been terrific, except for one major problem, which was that the bed sheets would NOT stay on the bed, although I had to say the bed was one of the most comfortable I'd ever slept on and it was. He sighed and said he was truly sorry and that hopefully, by the time we came back, this would not be a problem.
We were tourists, my husband and I, although my folks come from the Lookout Mountain/Chattanooga area. I actually lived there when I was a small child and my memories are vague and misty and some of them are not so good. I went back when I was thirty, on a combined honeymoon-meeting-my-father-for-the-first-time-since-I-was-five trip. Nothing like starting a marriage with a little baggage, eh? We went up there again when my old daddy died and so you'd think I would avoid Chattanooga like the plague, but honestly, my feelings about the place are pretty darn positive, so it must be a nice little city.
And it is a little city. There are big buildings and many of them are old and beautiful, but it's a small enough place that even without the slightest idea of how to find our hotel, we did, just by sight. It's a charming big-little city. Or little-big city. Whichever.
We didn't get to nearly all of the cool places I hear they have there now. We did go to the aquariums and that was a good day. And one day we drove up to Lookout Mountain and visited Rock City, which is still there, still going strong, and still as hokie and cool as it was when I was a child. You just can't beat the combination of mountain vistas, enchanting rock formations and gnomes painted in phosphorescent colors and lit with black lights.
Well, it works for me.
We also went to Ruby Falls, which I had never visited before and quite frankly, will never visit again. You take an elevator 260 feet down into the heart of Lookout Mountain (with a great many strangers) and when the doors open, you find yourself in a rather dark cave where someone is waiting to take your picture so that you can preserve the memory. We decided not to pose. I think we were feeling a bit claustrophobic and in fact, as I told my husband, I could feel the entire weight of the mountain on top of me. This made it a bit difficult to breathe, but I managed to get things under control and along with all the others in our group, we made our way down rocky paths carved into the rock and cave formations until we got to the falls themselves, which were a bit disappointing, even with the laser lights and Hollywood-style movie soundtrack, due to the drought.
Damn global warming.
But still, we saw the falls and then we all treked up the path to the elevator and blessedly, ascended safely back onto the face of the earth.
Phew. Disaster averted, once again.
So it was a good trip and we ate some good meals and had some good drinks and nothing bad happened (you just can't count sheets not staying on the bed as something bad, really) and now we're home and I have to say that I'm glad we went and I'm glad we're back. I had missed my own bed and the roosters next door that wake me up in the morning and I'm glad to be eating sane foods again and I'm glad to be back in my office, typing away.
I have, as I had before the trip, mixed feelings about travel. It was fun, and as they say, we have memories that'll last a lifetime (of Ruby Falls, at least) and that's all good.
But I have an awful lot to do here, what with the garden and the house and writing and maybe making a few Christmas presents and seeing all my children and a few friends and I hear we're going to have a Casablanca cast and crew get-together soon and boy, I am surely looking forward to that.
And I suppose I should just accept that this is the way I am- a woman who does indeed love her life, even with its narrow vistas, and who is happy to keep both feet on the ground and whose idea of a good time is to make a really nice soup.
My God. I am boring.
Well, you read it here first.