TN Trip Part III

The Sunday adventure began early as my flight was scheduled for a 12:35 take off. The family wanted to grab breakfast before I left and get in some last minute site seeing. We enjoyed a hearty breakfast at one of my dad's favorite places, The Cracker Barrel. Our waiter, Abraham, was a one star newbie that tried his very best at keeping our orders straight. Short of forgetting part of the meal, he did a good job. With our bellies full, gifts bought (a must when I go there), and quick jaunt to the gas station we headed off to see some sites.

Downtown Franklin is an adorable array of shops and old homes. My SIL got us around the downtown chaos as they were having the Main Street Festival. I was able to see some great old homes and take my nostalgic pictures. Due to our lack of time before my flight I took most of the pictures from a moving vehicle. The one stop we made was at The Factory. This place was really interesting.
The Factory was built in 1929 to accommodate Dortch Stove Works, Magic Chef, and Jamison Bedding. Now it is home to many high-end shops and dining facilities. We didn't tour inside, but I met one very interesting fellow. His name is Rusty.

Formal name is Russell T. Mechanism, created by artist Kris Nethercutt out of recycled junk over a six year period, and erected in 2008. Rusty, as he has fondly become known, stands over 20' tall and comes equipped with "Knobby Knees", "A Bug in his ear", "Water Works" (sprinklers between the legs), and numerous other quirks that you really need to see to appreciate. The sign posted on one side gives a nice review of where Rusty came from, what he stand for today, and how he is forging ahead for the future. I like Rusty.

We left the Factory and headed to the airport in Nashville. I made it there by 11:00 which was perfect timing to check my bags (5 minutes if that) and get to my gate. I made a couple of pit stops along the way to window shop and to buy one more gift for my oldest son. He's not as easy to buy for these days as my little guy. I got him a mouth harp and the poor thing nearly chipped his tooth trying to use it!

Sitting at the gate, I heard good news over the loud speaker. "Flight blah, blah, blah to Orlando is 30 minutes early. We have 137 passengers and 135 have checked in. We will begin boarding in the next 10 minutes." Woohoo! Early is great as I dreaded the traffic from OIA back to Melbourne.

I peek at my boarding pass and see that I am in the last group to board again. Okay, no big deal. I see a few faces from the first flight as most of them were in town for the weekend like me. The Music City Marathon was that Saturday so most of them were also fairly "small"--meaning John and Bubba from the first flight were not there to crowd my elbow room.

I was getting ready to board when the loud speaker sounded, "Ladies and Gentlemen of flight blah, blah, blah to Orlando, we have all 137 passengers checked in and will be able to take off ahead of schedule." Fantastic! Then I heard this..."Dude, the run was like balls to the wall awesome!" I cringed. Are you f***ing kidding me? He's back? Yeah, the same guy from the flight there was apparently flying back with me...and was behind me to board in the open seating of Southwest Airlines! I practically ran in front of two other people and made my apologies as I boarded the plane. There was three open seats, two next to each other and one in between a 5-7 year old boy and perhaps his 7-8 year old sister as they were arguing, "Did not," "Did to".

Crap. I took one of the seats with the open spot and crossed my fingers. The "Balls to the wall" guy got stuck with the kids, sort of. The mother traded spots and the dad got stuck sitting with him. I got stuck with a lady that drank too much wine on the flight home and kept falling asleep on my shoulder. It could have been worse. I'll definitely check in online next time when there are not assigned seats.

The flight was a bit rough once we hit Orlando. The turbulence, though not paralyzing, made for a rough landing as we bounced...seriously, we bounced onto the runway and halfway down as we taxied to the terminal. The weather was warm, humidity low, and sun shining. I was home.

After settling in for the night with my boys I asked Bam (my youngest) if I could go "bye-bye" again. This was his response:

That means NO.

TN Trip Part I

This past weekend was a fabulous getaway to TN--though it went by entirely to fast. I missed my boys. Especially Bam who actually likes having me around. Anthony was gone himself, as is the norm on weekends, so he didn't know I was even gone. Bobby had a rough time, well...an interesting one at least! I left Thursday evening.

Friday morning came too early with a page from my hubster. When I spoke to him he said it must have been Bam playing with his phone. He had a rough night with Bam waking every hour, coughing, runny nose--sinuses. Then the poor baby coughed so much he spit up leaving Bobby to clean blankets and bedding as well as a milk-vomit child. He threw the bedding in the wash and the baby in the bath. Once bath time was over he was running loose in his birthday suit while Bobby got his diaper and clothes ready. Bam has a habit of squatting in a corner while he goes #2 and he did just that in his bedroom...without his diaper on. It landed on his heel and he took off through the house, leaving a poop trail for Bobby to clean, not to mention keep the dogs out of it. In order to do just that he wrangled Bam, put the dogs outside, and got the baby cleaned up and dressed.

Then he decided to try my method of containment while he showered--placing Bam on our bed to watch TV and eat breakfast. The TV was on, the breakfast was there...a pop tart. Yeah, Bam peeled the pop tart apart and smeared the jelly filling all over our bed spread and his newly cleaned self. Bobby jumps out of the shower, baby-wiped everything, and realized the dogs were still outside. Bobby got dressed, brought Bam outside to find that Doug (our bulldog) had made his way across the fence but couldn't get back in the yard. While Bobby coaxed Doug back over, Bam was running loose once again and stepped in...yep, dog shit.

Dogs inside, another round with the wipes, and everything at a stand still for Bobby to take a breath...whew. I got the phone call from him at 10:30 a.m. when he was on the way to the store with Bam and Ant (whom he let stay home from school because at that point he couldn't get him there on time anyway). That was the beginning of his weekend. Poor guy didn't stand a chance. Through the rest of the weekend it was similar chaos, sleepless nights with Bam waking and crying for me, and the occasional cute video or picture to show me they were all still alive. My weekend fun will follow in TN Trip Part II.

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...