Day One: Wednesday - Driving to Tennessee
The trip wound up taking about 8 hours, what with stopping for lunch at all. It was a lot of fun, and I think Jason and I are pretty good travel companions. We stopped for lunch in a town outside of Roanoke and spent our meal snickering at the thick accents floating around the restaurant, particularly the man in line in front of us who sounded just like Boomhauer from King of the Hill. We then spent the rest of the next 5 days talking to each other mainly in thick Southern drawls.
One issue that came up: Jason is convinced that I hate his penny whistle (no, that is NOT a euphemism, you dirty people). See, we both like the high-spirited Irish music and he made me some CD's that we listened to on the way down. At the start of the first song, he whipped out his little penny whistle, which he's practicing in preparation for eventually learning the Irish bagpipes for our someday Irish band which so far includes me, his brother and sister, his brother's girlfriend, and probably his cousin in Rhode Island. Now I'm all for his practicing his penny whistle skills - for a bit. Along about the 8th song, I was getting a little tired of the high-pitched whistle drowning out the rest of the music. So I asked him to stop and he did after giving me a hurt look and then ratted me out to my cousins, telling them I hated his penny whistle. Tattletale!
We arrived amidst many hugs and welcomes and settled into Kingsport life relatively quickly. Or at least what I consider to be Kingsport life, which consists of extensive chats with family members and naps.
Following are the reasons why even if Jason and I had broken up before Thanksgiving, he was still coming with me to Tennessee, darn it:
Exhibit A - Cousin George and his wife Angie
Exibit B - Cousin Greg and his fiance Rosie
Exhibit C - Cousin Amy and her boyfriend Craig
Exhibit D - Cousin Geoff and his fiance Megan (showing off her bling)
Did I mention they're ALL younger than me? Any questions?
Day Two - Thanksgiving:
Lots of food. No, really, LOTS of food. 
(my dad gracing us with his carving skills despite my aunt not having the right knife. Yes, everyone was just as shocked and appalled as he was. Have I mentioned my dad's a bit of a knife snob?)
My mom and dad.
Aunt Laurel, hostess extraordinaire: 
She was up into the wee hours basting the turkey and baking pies in her brand new double oven.
Everything tasted great and being able to spend quality time with family who I haven't spent quality time with in years was wonderful. I took a nap in the late afternoon, letting the tryptophan work its magic, which was lovely as well.
Jason woke me up and told me he'd learned a lot while I was asleep. Specific topics included deer hunting and digging a hole with a Bobcat.
Day Three - Black Friday
While I've only personally ventured out on Black Friday once in my life that I can remember (in Harvard Square. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone who is claustrophobic and/or does not like crowds), Jason is an old pro, scouring the ads beforehand. We hit Best Buy, Circuit City, Office Max, Wal Mart and Target.
This year's deal that everyone had was a portable DVD player. Jason got one at Best Buy using the rebate and his McDonald's Best Buy bucks that he'd been hoarding and that were going to expire soon.
That afternoon the ladies minus me went wedding dress shopping for my cousin's fiance, Rosie. Jason and I got back kind of late from shopping and I was worn out and feeling grungy because if you're going to drag me to the stores at 6:30 AM, I'm not going to shower beforehand.
Jason and I went to dinner at Cracker Barrel with my parents. Yee-haw! I had a big Southern breakfast for dinner with grits and biscuits and gravy. I really hope that my Heaven has lots of Southern food. We also took advantage of the slashed prices on all of Cracker Barrel's autumnal wares. I got a great silver maple leaf candle holder.
Day Four - Saturday
Bays Mountain Park day! I have many fond memories of going to Bays Mountain Park when I was very small and feeding the ducks in the lake. It was also the first place I saw Hardware Wars, a classic for every Star Wars fan, in my opinion. I had a crazy flashback when we turned a corner going up the mountain and the side of the dam was in front of us. I didn't even know that I remembered what the dam looked like, but it was total deja vu.
I also have fond memories from when I was eight of freaking out my big tough, camo-wearing, shotgun in the Everglades-shooting cousins (one of whom is now a Marine), by holding the GIANT snake after the snake presentation, and then letting it wrap around my leg because it was cold. Poor snake.
We walked all around the park and saw snakes, big bullfrogs, wolves, deer, and a fat possum named Poindexter. 
It looked like the ducks were all gone for the season, which I was sad about since I was looking forward to seeing them again. As you can see from the pictures, it was a beautiful day.
Inside the main building some of the exhibits were the same ones that were there when I was four. I should have taken pictures of the diagrams of how bees make honey and the plastic dinosaurs showing the various dinosaur eras (plus the wooly mammoth and giant deer. There were giant deer back then! I had no idea. And based on what were surely accurate scale model representations, those suckers were almost as big as the T-Rex).
The best part, in my opinion, was the kiddie cave, which explicitly forbade anyone over 11 from entering. WhatEVER. As you can see, Amy and I had no qualms with joining my cousin's stepdaughter, Carrigan, in the cave.
We stayed for the planetarium show, which took us on an exploration of space complete with a snazzy spaceship and a futuristic theme song that Jason regaled us with afterwards while Amy danced.
Day Five - SUNDAY
Sad day. We said good-bye to everyone the night before and headed out early Sunday morning. We met up with Jason's brother and his girlfriend in Shepherdstown, WV, a cutesy-pie little town with cutesy-pie little stores near the site of the Battle of Antietam.
Here's a cannon:
Yep.
Then we got lost and stuck in major Thanksgiving weekend traffic coming back and were dead tired by the time we made it back to my place. The next day Jason's flight left first thing and then I went to an interview for the job I have now. All in all, a successful weekend.
As a side note, the family LOVES Jason. Every single one of them. Now I'm going to give him a big head, but I got lots of thumbs ups from the men and many "He's so cute!" and "He's great!" from the women. So I think we've officially reached the point that if I break up with him I will be shunned and ridiculed forever in my family circles.
1 comment:
Hey! I know her!! And him!! Seeing pictures of all the Boston people makes me a teeny bit homesick. Give a shout-out to Kip and Woody for me next time you see them. I talked to her on the phone today, but whatever, it's not the same.
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