Notice: Increased Black Bear Activity-Caution Advised

Wilderness camping and teenage girls do not go together, at least not in this day and age. My husband decided that our family needed to bond through some outdoor adventures this summer, so only a few days after our whitewater trip, we headed to Fort Mountain in North Georgia. Arriving after hours left us without the reassurance of the park rangers that all would be safe. Instead, we read the posted announcement about how active the black bears are this time of year and that we needed to have all our trash emptied by 3p.m. Seriously? We had stopped and bought a couple of pizzas on the way up and Wesley had insisted we wait until we arrived at camp to eat them. You know…the whole picnic in the woods thing. Now instead of Yogi Bear and Boo Boo, we were facing an unusually active black bear population. Perfect for a 15 year old girl whose only fears in life have always been the woods at night and wild animals. Double perfect! Now, we would all smell delicious to our hosts in the forest. We set up the tents,built a fire, and settled in for a relaxing evening of reading and conversation. All was going great until Charlotte realized that it had gotten really dark. Panic set in. Tears. Begging to go home. Swearing she would never do THIS again! I tryed to comfort her with words; no luck. I tried to wrap my arms around her; that didn’t work either. I went to the tent and snuggled with her; not effective. After about an hour of misery (hers and mine), she finally calmed down enough to play a game on her cell phone. I later found out that she had reception on that mountain and had been texting her boyfriend all afternoon. Wesley told her that next time there won’t be a phone. She told him that there will absolutely never be a next time. I don’t even want to be around when that comes up again. Wilderness camping doesn’t allow for air mattresses and porta-potties so let’s suffice it to say that I did not have a comfortable night. By the time dawn arrived, I was so ready to get up and out of there. My rough and tough husband suggested a lengthy hike to get us all going. I suggested that if he wanted to keep me from going off, we would enjoy ourselves as we packed up and headed home. A short, brisk walk prevailed and everyone was happy as we drove down the mountain in the infamous VW Vanagon. At least it kept its cool on this trip.

On to Walley World (the amusement park in National Lampoon’s Vacation not the discount chain store)

The Vann’s Ocoee Adventure: Part 1 -On to Walley World

My family set out to enjoy an adventurous day whitewater rafting in Tennessee at the Ocoee River about 2 hours north of our home in suburbia. It is my husband’s 51st birthday and he insisted that no one bring their cell phones because he is so sick of seeing the kids texting constantly. We needed some real, good, old-fashioned family time. Go Dad! My daughter and I are a little scared. All the boys are not, of course.

Main Characters

Dad - my Husband Wesley

Max – my 20 year old son just home from a year in Costa Rica

Brice – my 20 year old son who is always gone somewhere else

Charlotte – my 15 year old daughter who only usually laughs with her friends

Mom – Me

Drew - the 16 year old cousin

Act I

Max: “Hey Dad, is that smoke coming out of the back of the van?”

Dad: “Aw man, we just blew a hose.”

Charlotte: “It’s not gonna blow up is it?”

Me: “Pull over up there in that driveway so we are out of the traffic.”

We pull over and Wesley gets out to see what the problem is. He thinks he can fix it. He knows this because this vehicle has broken down on numerous occasions before.

Dad: “Is that a house or what up there? Brice, go see if they have a pair of pliers.”

Brice: “Me? Why me?”

Wesley takes off up the hill alone. At this point, our rafting expedition is set to leave in just over an hour and we are about 30 minutes away still. I start laughing because it’s just too funny. Wesley returns and says the man who owns the house, Randall, said to pull up there.

Me: “I knew this was gonna happen. Seriously I knew something like this was gonna happen.”

It is my husband’s birthday today, so he gets to do basically everything the way he wants. He loves this old Volkswagen Van and that’s what he wanted to drive today. Everyone is actually smiling because this is so typical of our family. We are strikingly similar to Chevy Chase’s family in Vacation. Walley world here we come!

Randall: “Yall’s got lucky today, I’m usually gone by now, but I gotta ulcer or somethin’, kep me up all night.”

Dad: “So what do you do with all this equipment?”

Randall: “I kindly farm. Chickens and cattle. I was raised within a mile a where we are right now. Hey, you need a wranch?”

Dad: “No thanks I think I’ve just about got it.”

Back in the van the rest of us wait.

Max: ‘Do you think they have Wi-Fi here? Here Mom, plug in my computer and let me try.”

Drew who has been watching a movie on his Touch iPod says “Naw I already tried…nothing here.”

As Wesley and Randall finish up the repair, I decide that I will not give in to fear, but I will absolutely go down this river. Yeah, I can do it and if its my time to go, well that’s just that. Randall goes to turn on the water hose to fill up something in our van. I notice his crisp blue Liberty overalls and his camouflage hat. There is also a new Ford Explorer and a Toyota Camry in the garage, along with some heavy equipment in the yard. Chickens and cows must be doing pretty good these days. We thank him and pull down the driveway with 45 minutes to get there.

Wesley looks over at me and grins, I shake my head and laugh.

Dad: “What?”

Me: “Nothing”

We all knew ‘what.’

“On to Walley World”

Wandering for Words

I stumbled upon this video of Alicia Keys on Def Jam Poetry. I think I have a pretty good excuse for not knowing how talented she is. I’m a WASP, (meaning I’m not exposed to R&B much unless I seek it out) and I’m older,(seriously too old to know these things, not like 31or even the borderline number 35), and haven’t had much time to wander lately. Not wander as in ‘backpack around the world’ wandering, just the plain ‘no place yet everywhere to go’ wandering that i have been famous for at other times of my life. Last night, my son took me to a seedy part of Atlanta to hear this guy Shane Claiborne. He wanders a lot, in fact he goes from place to place in a souped up school bus to preach the truth of Jesus. Not Sunday morning, all dressed up, white washed Jesus, but the shoeless, dirty, hangin’ with drug addicts Jesus. This guy has some cool words. He has some friends that are the band and they sound like a combination of rock-a-billy and some call to prayer playing through the air in India at dusk or maybe sounds from a Jewish chant. Don’t you think it’s true that we would have more interesting words if we all wandered more? Do words wander like I do? Can they change their meaning based on their experiences or take on a new meaning by seeing through another’s eye? Have I been limiting myself to the same old words because I have been too busy to wander? I need to change that soon, because I have really enjoyed stumbling upon Alicia and her spoken words. That is some powerful stuff! Check it out and let me know what you think.

How Superbowl Ads Have Changed Over the Years

http://www.circavie.com/timelines/eb8bbb9e-9616-56f9-bb7a-e4b90a856115

Toxic Smell of Chaos

After reading about ‘diffusing the fragrance of Christ’ this morning, I had one of those flashes of creativity and I wondered if it was original or if it was just stuck in my brain from another time. I thought when I googled ‘toxic smell of chaos,’ some famous lyric or poet would pop up. It didn’t. I am sure those words have been penned before, but there is no immediate evidence. I found a band named Toxic Chaos and there was a great deal of info on toxic smells, but no ‘toxic smell of chaos.’ This brings me to a question. Can words belong to someone? I don’t mean like a trademark or title of a book , but in general writing. If I had found those words written somewhere when I googled, could they not be mine also? If someone has already spoken or written a phrase somewhere in the world, is it taken? Is there a giant computer in the Plagiarism Police Department that records every phrase ever spoken and claims your utterance merely a counterfeit? What if every time I wrote a counterfeit phrase it mysteriously faded from the page? Would there be anything left to write? If ‘toxic smell of chaos’ is already taken, did I actually think of it? This is beginning to sound like the next Matrix movie, so I guess I’ll be content with the fact that almost everything I write has been written before. Is there anything new under the sun? Ooh…is that taken? Just Kidding, I know it is, so I guess I shouldn’t have written it? If I come up missing, just give the plagiarism police a call. That’s where I’ll be, but be forewarned, you’ll have to come up with an original thought to get me out.

Frozen Fireworks

Has anyone ever noticed that when lots of fireworks have exploded and a light catches the lingering smoke just right, the sky looks as though it has been invaded by giant snow covered blades of grass? It was like I was an ant in a winter wonderland. Like an bundled up alien on Planet Huge. Frosty shoots of fescue reaching up to the heavens, but then dissolving into the darkness only to be replaced by sprouting centipede covered with frozen flakes. I’ve never seen frozen fireworks before tonight, but from now on, I’ll be looking for them among the falling trails of gold and and the orbs of red and blue.