TN Trip Part II

Thursday evening, flight leaving on time at 7:35 EST. The flight, via Southwest, was okay considering I was in the last group to board and had to sit between to huge (NFL Refrigerator Perry huge) guys, and listen to another guy in front of me say "balls to the wall" in just about every sentence he uttered. The two big boys on either side of me were just as annoyed with him so I spent most of the flight placing bets on who was going to bitch slap the guy first once we landed (we all three lost the wager, but had the satisfaction of seeing him lose part of his luggage at baggage claim). My mom and big brother were there to rescue me, and after a brief stop to see my SIL and drop my brother off (songs, crying, laughing--Thanks Bekah and T.), Mom and I headed back to the hotel. We stayed up past 1:00 a.m. (2 a.m. my time) chit-chatting and catching up. That night we turned on the fan to cool, not the actual air (this has a significance for the next night).

We were up and running by 8:00 as my phone had gone off a couple of times. It was a page and a text message from Bobby. His chaos was just beginning as I posted earlier. Mom and I planned to spend the day shopping for the baby shower that was the following afternoon. We had the gist of our whereabouts to get us into just enough trouble:

Yeah, I have pictures of the other car that we wiped out, backing up in the parking lot of one of the gazillion stores we shopped in that afternoon, but due to privacy I'm not posting them. We were detained for a half hour perhaps, but people are very friendly in TN and this included all of the officers that showed up to make sure we didn't take off without leaving our information. Just for the record...I wasn't driving.

Once we cleared my mother's good name with the police, we shopped a bit more, then headed to my brother's house for some good food, and Oreo balls:

**Recipe to follow! They are AMAZING (yes, and right up there with my family's banana pudding).

Along the way I kept seeing a horse on a hot tin roof. After numerous drive-bys and a few glasses of wine I started to get annoyed with it and took a picture:

Taking a picture only confirmed my annoyance...his eyes followed me every time I passed him.

That evening after we got back to the hotel Mom asked me to turn on the A/C this time as it was not cold enough the night before with just the fan. Mind you it was already nearing midnight as we settled into the room. I turned the knob to cool, the fan purred loudly. I turned the fan to A/C and a blast of cold air came out. Brrr, it was cold and also purring....then it got scary. EEEEEEEEEEEE, Ugggggggggggggg, EEEEEEEEEEEE. Holy crap, it sounded like a S. Korean on a moped! If you've ever been to S. Korea and walked the streets during rush hour then you know the intensity of that sound and the urgent need to jump out of the way. If you have never experienced such a scenario then count your blessings. Back to the A/C, after the initial start up and death throttling moped sound it went back to purring. I settled into my bed to the sound of the cool purring when EEEEEEEEEEEE, Ugggggggggggggg, EEEEEEEEEEEE--the Moped returned.

That's it, no A/C for Mom. We had a beautiful, but rushed, Saturday. The morning was spent finishing details and gifts for my SIL's baby shower. We headed off to the castle...er, home of their friend that was hosting the party. It was GORGEOUS! Those pictures will be up later if I can get her permission to show them off. We polished off the Oreo balls and loaded the truck with all of her goodies. They had an afternoon/evening planned to visit Arrington Vineyards. The drive up was so serene and beautiful. The wine house was fantastic: The Wine Deck, The Wine Tasting, The Wine House & Part of the Vineyard




The wine tasting was my favorite part. After teasing my pallet with a few different versions of reds, whites, dry, and just plain YUM, I purchased a bottle of their specialty Raspberry Wine.

They brought it out with chocolate truffles, and let's just say I nearly fell out of my chair and off the Wine deck when I tasted the heavenly mixture.

After a beautiful Saturday in the hills of Tennessee we headed to a great dinner, then finally home to unload all the goodies from the baby shower, and finally back to our hotel...where we got locked out of our room.

Apparently it was standard procedure to lock us out when the had someone working on our Full Throttle Moped induced A/C. By the time we settled down to sleep it was again after midnight. My flight was due to leave at 12:35 the next day. The Sunday adventure will be posted shortly in TN Trip Part III where you will get to meet the tallest factory man I've ever seen, a revisit from flight companions, and my youngest son's response to my leaving...