Weekend Excursion

Sometimes M and I take a notion to go somewhere. Sometimes we take this notion without A Plan. Sometimes we drive for two hours to Mammoth Caves out of the blue on a Friday night. And sometimes, just sometimes, we get fed up before we find a hotel* and we, umm.. we go home again and decide to go when not in peak tourist season. But then, also sometimes, we will have seen an advertisement in something we picked up in a rest area, and then we end up in Louisville at a hotel with an indoor water park. And "sometime".... that would be this weekend. As we were on our way home on Friday night, M laughed and said that at least we had a journal entry. And I said, "I'm not writing about this because it's stupid." In compromise, I'm not going into the whole debacle, just mentioning it for posterity.

Anyway, we couldn't check into our hotel until 3:00. M called yesterday morning to see if they had any rooms and made a reservation. This is totally out of character for us because we never ever make reservations. Well, last time we went to Gatlinburg we had one by the time we got to our place, but only because we called from the car fifteen minutes in advance, after driving around for half an hour. Hardly counts. So, we got up and ready and we left here at around noon. We ate at Red Lobster, and then we took me to Hobby Lobby (which I always hear people talking about but there isn't one anywhere close**) and then took M to First Quality Music, and I was a very, very good wife because I let him play there for over an hour without nagging. (This is a store that mandolin players literally will fly into Louisville from all over to go to, if that tells you anything.) There was a very nice guy working there, another mandolin player, who kept bringing interesting mandolins in and thrusting them at M so he could play them. Including one with a ticket price of $24,000, and a pick worth a couple hundred. (It's a flat object! Worth! More! Than! A! Hundred! Dollars! How can this even be possible?!) So, it was basically like porn for him.

Then there was the pool, which was rather fun. There were a great many kids running around screaming, but in general, it was pretty nice. Smallish, for a water park, but it had two long curvy swooshy slides, a kiddie pool with water dribbling all over the place from tall things, and with three smaller slides there, and a really big hot tub. Plus just regular swimming space, of course. We actually didn't stay in all that long because it's somewhat exhausting, what with the noise and the heat and the running up the stairs and the swimming and the chlorine. Also, I get kind of freaked out, especially when there are a lot of people around, when I spend too long without my glasses, and you can't wear glasses on a water slide. Anyway, we went to Cracker Barrel for dinner, and then we spent the rest of the evening relaxing and doing nothing other than reading and watching Austin Powers on TV. I WOULD HAVE posted last night and fidded around online, except their free internet access was broken. And apparently it wasn't a local call to Louisville, so my handy list of dialup numbers from our ISP was worthless. I have NOT ONCE gotten to use that stupid laptop for anything. Not when we spent the weekend with my parents (forgot to get username/password for the account) and not when we went to Sweden (incompatible charger) and not when we went to my parents again (couldn't leave it in the car all day before we went to Morehead, too hot). I am beginning to get Very Sad. On principle more than anything, I guess. I'm a geek and I need my portable technology geekness fulfilled.

There was more swimming this morning, and we made it home by noon, which is excellent because a little at-home time feels just about right to round off the weekend. I love our little spontaneous weekend trips. It didn't quite make up for not getting to go to Myrtle Beach but it was good enough for now. :)

*See, all we ask for in a motel is an indoor pool. Since it's summer, we could have lived with an outdoor pool except for the continuous lightning. Since an actual friend of the family--my sister-in-law's cousin's husband.. I graduated with her and we went to their wedding--was struck by lightning a few years ago, WE DO NOT TAKE CHANCES WITH LIGHTNING. (Seriously. Stay inside when there's lightning. He was carrying their two-month-old daughter, and ironically, they were heading for safer shelter because the storm was getting worse. She ended up on the ground and perfectly fine, but he died. And that is your friendly safety message for the day.)

**Louisville is actually just a little farther from us than Lexington is, but it's three hours or so from Morehead, so we're just not really used to going there. So, there is one reasonably close, but not in a direction in which we typically travel. We know where stuff is in Lexington, so we usually head in that direction. Since we moved, we keep talking about getting familiar with Louisville, which, by the way, is pronounced Louavul or similar, and if you put an S in there you will sound really stupid) but we just haven't done it yet. I think part of it is because we tend to have stress overload when we're there because usually, it's for the INS. BCIS. Whatever. AND, that reminds me of a joke that we used to tell in grade school. It goes like this: How do you pronounce the capital of Kentucky, Loueyville or LouiSville? And they would always say one or the other (I was living in Georgia or Tennessee most of the time so typically they would get it wrong.) And then you say, "WRONG! FRANKFORT!!!!" Haha, haha. haha. Yeah, so I was always a nerd, so what?