Hey, y'all, I'm home

Well, here we are again. Lots of blank space on the screen, and lots between my ears.

If you put my head up to your ear, all you hear is the sound of the ocean. Amazing how much mental vigor escapes after a week at the beach. A whole week of thinking of nothing but how much seafood is too much (never got an answer on that), how much sun is too much (ignition of close-by draperies with the heat generated by your neck is an approximate measure), how much inhaled pool water is too much (less is better, especially in a pool full of children with tiny weak bladders). ::sigh::

I get back, and it’s as if I was gone a month—stacks of crap left undone by wonderfully efficient government-issue bureaucratic coworkers (thank you!), grass banging the underside of the eaves, the huge stack of blogs the delivery boy threw in the yard—there’s just too much to process. I keep telling everyone how tired I am, but I would much rather be tired from spending two hours catching Wild Baby jumping into the pool than having to return umpty-jillion phone calls about stuff that common garden voles could solve. But, that’s what makes vacation even better. Or work even worse.

A week’s worth o’fun is too much to cram into this blog, so I’ll touch on a few highlights.

Road Kill

Four coyotes (all before getting very far out of Jefferson County, and as always, nary an anvil in sight), three raccoons, a seagull, a snake, assorted furry meat pies, about twenty armadillos and only four possums. I am not sure whether to be glad or sad about that last part—either possums are getting scarcer or smarter, or ‘dillers are getting abundanter and stupider. Neither scenario is a good one.

Gulf Shores, Alabama

Great weather all week, even though there were towering storms out in the Gulf, down around Perdido, across the bay toward Dauphin Island, and north up in Baldwin County. They all skirted around and left only a few drops of rain. No motorized scooters to be found this trip, and either they have added a bike lane or I just didn’t remember it being there, but there were few of those butt-puckeringly close calls with moron-with-a-snootful-and-a-toy crowd. There were a huge amount of folks down there, but it didn’t seem oppressive or scary—everyone was pretty well behaved, waiting on the traffic lights to change and keeping the thumping-bass stereos on wheels toned down to a manageable level. Gulf Shores is more family oriented than a lot of places on the Gulf that cater to college kids (or their bad-driver twins—ancient snowbirds so tiny they can’t even see over the steering wheel; assuming they can see at all), so even at its worst, it is still pretty fun, even for a curmudgeon.

Good grief, what am I saying!? The place is a total hellhole! GO AWAY! DON’T GO THERE! There is a constant shower of pestilence and perfidy, with mobs of scabby, slack-jawed poltroons! BAD! (Good googlie, how I wish I was back down there.)

Seafood

Price does not indicate quality. The Original Oyster House is good, but busier than a shark in a pool of chum. The Back Porch is good, but the servings are criminally small, although it is fun to sit there and watch folks pull up at the dock and sit down for supper. Surprisingly, Gulf State Park Resort’s restaurant puts out one of the best buffet spreads, with really good fresh ocean stuff at a very reasonable price. The only drawback is the place itself, which labors under the pall of governmental oversight as part of the Alabama State Park System. It was built in 1974, with all of the style and grace of the big bunker in Guns of Navarone. Big, brutalist, concrete thing which was out of style eight years before it was built, with icky plastic tablecloth covered fold-up tables and Saarinen knock-off Tulip chairs that are still covered in sort of a weird 1970s proto-industrial olive green vinyl. Doors patched with bits of metal that look like Skip from the Metal Shop at Atmore Prison made his very own self, dust bunnies in the corners that could have made a throw rug, rusty light fixtures—INSIDE THE BUILDING, brown streaks on the walls from the leaky dead-flat roof (flat roofs, non-existent upkeep, and torrents of annual rainfall do not a happy ménage make). All of it is just pitiful—especially when you go a half mile either way and see what the private side manages to do. But it does have one thing—location. Huge frontage of untouched prime beach real estate, great big Lake Shelby back off the road behind it, and plopped right there between Orange Beach and Gulf Shores. Ah, well. Food’s good.

Tall Ships

Wednesday we drove down to Fort Morgan to see what promised to be a really neat thing with the arrival of a group of big schoonery-clippery-type sail boats for Mobile’s Tricentennial celebration. They were going to moor at the channel, then head up the bay on Thursday. The entire Eastern Shore decided to go see what there was to see. Which was a couple of boats, including the USCGS EAGLE. The rest either were too far out to sea to see, or had not arrived or had already gone up the bay. Which was disappointing, especially after enduring a billion people waiting to use one bathroom, or walking a half mile from the parking place in 100 degree heat with four whiny children and two whiny inlaws. There was a brief black powder cannon firing event.

Two rounds.

Please.

At least there was the thrilling walk back to the parking place in 100 degree heat with three whiny children, one whiny preteen girl who chose to make a point of acting like a large, loosely constructed wombat turd to curry favor with two whiney inlaws, who chose to use this as a time to hold forth that our parenting style was unfair, in that it placed undue burdens upon one particular child who was extra special and was deserving of free rein to act in any sort of non-species-specific mammal feces-type she wished. My, what a long, LONG walk back to the parking lot.

It was definitely a learning experience.

Swimming

Those swim lessons paid off pretty well, in that none of the kids drowned. Not for lack of trying. Catherine’s biggest problem was that she was having so much fun that she tended to forget it is unwise to laugh underwater. That cost us two separate incidents of unintended protein discharge and much embarrassment as we attempted to use a towel to corral small bits of really icky floating stuff. She was able to do pretty well in the face down and face up float modes, though, and thoroughly enjoyed repeatedly jumping into the water from poolside. Lots of splash. Jonathan did fine, and finally got to where he could do something that looked like swimming. Ashley contented herself with trying to tell everyone what they were doing wrong, all the while studiously avoiding putting her head underwater. Rebecca still is very timid, even in three feet of water, but she is better than she was to start with.

Biggest surprise was Reba, who even though she had lessons when she was little, had not really swam in maybe 30 years. “You know, I really need to take lessons again.” I looked around. “Well, let’s see—you’ve got on a swim suit and you’re IN THE WATER. What are you waiting for!?” So we went through the basics, including actually getting your face under the water and messing up your nicely fixed hair, holding your breath whilst there, floating, gliding, molesting, diving, kicking, and groping. Despite my pedagogical methods (which were attuned more toward my own amusement rather than her instruction) she did fine, and didn’t want to get back out.

The Beach

No signs of Leonardo DiCaprio, so we start off with a great big plus right there. The sand was in great shape this year—blinding white with little trash, no seaweed to speak of, no jellyfish (which meant no Spongebob) and a huge abundance of shells. We went out for about an hour and came back with several big bucketsful. Most were pretty small, because we didn’t get way out in the water, but they were impressive nonetheless and there seemed to be a lot of dark colored scallop shells. Don’t know why. There were a good many people, but not crowded to the point of being uncomfortable. More or less perfect.

The Condo Wars, or What Happens When Large Amounts of Disposable Income Meets the Fireworks Stand

It is illegal to discharge fireworks within the corporate limits of Gulf Shores, Alabama.

Which make me wonder what would happen if it was legal. As it stands, civil disobedience in celebration of American Independence with huge caches of explosives is alive and well, and pretty much was continuous on the nights before, during, and after the Fourth. I imagine the entire Chinese military complex would be flush with cash for the entire year based solely upon the combined purchases of the folks in our condo and the ones on either side. Sure was cool, though.

The best was the night of the Fourth itself. The Town of Gulf Shores sponsors a legal, safe, and huge display every year from a barge anchored a couple of hundred yards offshore. This year, it looked like it might get rained out, as one of those gigantic thunderstorms looked like it was going to blow back in from the east. Miles high piles of black clouds that came down and met the water and bolts of lightning all across the sky. Luckily, it stayed back east of town and blew down far south down into the Gulf, so the official display went on as scheduled, accompanied by God’s Own Fireworks Show from horizon to horizon. The barge would light off a few hundred big boomers and then one of the several groups of folks on the beach would light off some big mortar shells and then there would be a huge network of purple lightning running across the underside of a hundred square miles of clouds, with attendant thunder sound effects. God always got the biggest applause. God apparently likes to celebrate like a regular good ol’ boy patriot, but of course, God was working out beyond the 12-mile limit, so he didn’t have to worry about getting himself arrested.

Relaxing

I did not get to watch the History Channel, although I was able to watch every single cartoon on the Cartoon Network, and I did finally get to watch my copy of The Sand Pebbles that I brought from home. I bought it nearly two years ago off the bargain rack, but only got to see it during vacation. Sort of. First night was aborted due to some sort of bathtime crisis, and the second night it had to compete with everyone trying to see how loudly they could discuss everything else except my movie as they loudly shushed the kids and loudly told them that I was trying to watch my show. They all finally decided I was being too antisocial and they all went down to the beach to play. As for the movie--we need more actors like Steve McQueen. I think it would also behoove us to make sure our sailors can still conduct a boarding party with pistol and cutlass in summer whites.

Other relaxing activities included going to the zoo, which was very nice, but not quite worth the 41 bucks it took to admit a family of six; several laps around the Big Woody in a go-kart, which was very nice, but not quite worth however much it finally wound up costing us; and a round of miniature golf at the Zooland Park (next door to the zoo, hence the name) which was the adventure it always is. Oldest Girl hits ball eight times and uses the putter to keep errant balls from rolling back to the tee, then claims a score of four; Little Girl combines the finesse of a wrecking ball with the smooth strokes of an axe-murderer as she chases her ball over multiple adjacent holes; Boy tries to figure out how all the obstacles are built; Middle Girl tries to play the game straight up; Mom tries to not beat little children with putter; and I sweat buckets and try to figure out why anyone really likes to do this.

I took several books, and even bought one while I was there, but didn’t read anything.

We shopped some, including several trips to the Wal-Mart in Foley (I might give up blogging for a week, but surely you don’t think I could give up on Wal-Mart!), and did some outlet shopping at the stores where you can buy stuff you can’t get anywhere else (except at any decent-sized department store) and pay the absolute lowest price around (except, again, at any decent-sized department store).

As for sleeping late…HAH! Between the kids firing up Nickelodeon and my mama-in-law deciding to do laundry at 6:30 every morning, sleeping late was just a silly dream. Speaking of which, Reba and I wound up sharing a room with Jonathan and Catherine. I never knew it, but Catherine talks in her sleep, and even more interesting is she laughs like she’s having quite the wild time. Every night, she would just cackle and giggle. Beats screaming, I suppose. I do wonder what she must be dreaming about.

Going Home

We left early Saturday, loaded down with all of our plunder and booty. Reba’s mom and dad decided to stop and eat, and we went on, stopping to pee and air up the tires and buy gas and cold drinks. Everything was great until just north of Prattville, when the engine popped and lost power, then finally died. Crap.

Saturday about noon it was around 97 degrees in South Alabama, and an interstate shoulder is not the place to pass the time. And Reba’s cell phone was dead. Crap.

I figured that there was something in the gas—it has done this before after a pretty long trip and usually clears itself after sitting for a while. Of course, we were able to go into a nice building when it happened then. This time was just a long strip of very hot asphalt. Crap.

I got out and raised the hood, just to check and see if there was anything else it could be—everything looked fine and I lowered the hood and came around the passenger side and met up with a State Trooper. Halleluiah! He was going to another call and saw us and pulled over. While he was there, it did crank back up but wouldn't stay running, so I got him to call a tow truck before he went on. We waited about fifteen minutes and saw no sign of a truck, so I cranked it up and it ran fine. We headed back out and of course, twenty miles further it crapped out again. This went on all the way to Clanton, and we made about four different stops, each time just past an exit or in the middle of nowhere. Crap.

Finally, we hit Clanton right and were able to coast into a service station. I filled it up with premium and two bottles of injector cleaner, and actually managed to make it to Trussville with no further stops. Thank God.

And so ends the brief, expurgated version of My Summer Vacation. I got in and saw that Possumblog had about as many hits without me as with me, which tells me a lot, but being the large, pea-brained marsupial I am, I doubt I will figure out what it tells me.

Anyway, glad to be back.
posted by Terry at 4:58:00 PM