It's always a joy to visit relatives, especially around the holidays.
I rented a gigantic van, bigger than most church vans, and drove to Tennessee with my immediate family to spend the four-day Thanksgiving weekend with my sister Elaine, her husband Ken, and their three boys, Travis, Jordan and Spencer.
We took a few trips to the Smokies, visiting two distinct tourist attractions. One, Gatlinburg, is a commercial tourist trap of the first magnitude. We had a lot of fun but going from shop to shop and looking at gaudy trinkets and cheap T-shirts is not my favorite thing to do. But it was great being with everyone. One interesting stop was at a souvenir shop that also had something called "SpaCapsules," where you lie on your stomach on a bed inside this blue-and-silver spaceship-like capsule, with a top that closes down on you. You put on headphones and lie, face down, while it gives you a body massage using some kind of water-based vibration technology. Almost everybody got one except me, but it was interesting to watch. The clerk said the machines cost $25,000, but I looked 'em up online and the company now has one for the home, so this version has got to be a lot cheaper than the commercial ones (here's the link if you're curious. I'll try to post a few photos on here soon).
The next day we went to the Great Smokey Mountains National Park and saw Cade's Cove, the Sinks waterfall, and a few rock-strewn rivers. The scenery is simply fabulous, and some of the leaves were still in full autumnal splendor. You could see snow atop some of the mountains. We also saw a lot of deer, but no black bears. We wondered if they might be hibernating.
The Smokies are special to me and Janet because that's where we spent our honeymoon, many moons ago. The area outside the park has been developed quite a bit and the traffic around Cade's Cove has gotten heavy, but the park itself is still one of the country's great natural wonders.
Elaine and Ken moved from their home in Tampa, Florida, to the Knoxville, Tennessee, area this summer and this was the first chance we had to see their "new life" up close and personal.
I give them so much credit for making a bold move like that. They had a comfortable situation in Tampa with two good jobs and a nice house in a subdivision, with a pond and nature preserve in their backyard. It's not easy to pull up roots and move so far away and virtually start over. But they had been talking about it for years. Tampa is getting way too crowded, you have to fight traffic everywhere you go. Elaine had a great job but it caused lots of stress.
They always talked about "simplifying" and getting away from all the craziness and stress, and they did it.
When I saw their country home outside of Knoxville, built in the 1860s but modernized, on rolling hills surrounded by horse farms, I knew it was a perfect fit for them.
It makes me look at my own life, and wonder if a radical move would be wise. It is definitely easier to stay where you are, in every respect, than it is to get up and go. But sometimes you need to take a step or you'll get left behind or run over.
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My nephew Spencer is 9 years old and has always been a natural comedian. We were talking about what he wants to do when he gets older and he said he wants to be an animal hunter like Steve Irwin. After a few minutes talking about how what kind of animals he'd catch, he said, "Meanwhile, I'm going to work on my childhood."
We were standing on a river weir near Norris Dam, outside of Knoxville, when Spencer called my son-in-law Matt over and said, "See that?," pointing to water pouring over a fairly small rock ledge. "That's Niagara Falls -- for ants!"
Spencer has a million of 'em ... those are just two that come to mind.
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Hope you all had a very good holiday. Now it's back to the grind for another month until Christmas.
Toledo, Ohio
November 26, 2007