To My Sisters, With Love

I've just spent three days with my sisters. It was lovely.

I've heard that half the fun is getting there. Not so much for me. I hate to drive where I don't know where I'm going. But I got a map printed out and thought I would be okay. I have little sense of direction. I was to get off at exit 434. I kept looking for the name, it wasn't showing up, I looked at the directions again. It was exit 443 and I was past that.

Turn around, go back. During the week there are lots and lots of trucks on the roads. In the South, they don't waste extra money on anything as stupid as signs about upcoming events. One sign per exit. If you are passing a truck and miss it, too dang bad.

I backtracked, found the correct exit and continued on. I was on the correct road, I turned on to the correct road. I was looking at my directions and watching for signs. I apparently missed a sign and ended up driving several miles of twisting roads while thinking that it was all so very unfamiliar. I came to a sign that said the next 7 miles were more than twisty and narrow besides. The road simply ended at the Appalachian Trail. Backtracking again through the miles of narrow and very twisty roads.

I was more than an hour later than I needed to be. My backtracking was time consuming. I was doing okay until I saw my sisters who weren't allowed into our room because the reservation was in my name and I was late and they were on the porch and I had been so nervous and I hated it and I just burst into tears. And they didn't even mind. They let me cry.

Our hotel wasn't quite seedy, but it surely wasn't new and luxurious. It was also only $40 per night. But really, it wasn't seedy.

It had a kitchenette included. In a time of gadgets and with all of us used to higher standards of living, it was shocking to find no microwave. There was a stove and refrigerator. But no microwave. I brought my own coffeepot because I'm not going without coffee. There was a coffeepot and a toaster. But no microwave.

It is impossible to reheat my coffee without a microwave. That was disappointing. Somehow we survived.

The room had a slightly musty smell to it. One sister keeps Frebreeze in her car. I don't understand that but no one asked me to. The other sister purchased a candle. We spent our first full day shopping. The candle was purchased later in the day and then … we realized we had no way to light it.

Outlet Malls are not going to carry matches. I don't know why. We had to stop at Walgreen's to get some matches. And I stayed in the car with my sore feet. They came out to tell me that Easter candy was 75% off. I went in and the two people who already had bags of candy went in for a refill. We helped to get rid of the out of date stock.

We played games and shopped and ate. We had stuff from the estate to go through. We argued over who had the worst hairstyles over the years. Hard to decide, the pictures were all so bad.

We were going to have pancakes for breakfast because it appears to be mandatory, a law in Tennessee, that you have them while you are on vacation. But we refused to wait in line for an hour for pancakes. We drove to a different pancake place and had our pancakes without waiting.

Then we shopped some more. It is much more fun to shop with someone else than it is to shop alone. It is especially sweet to shop with sisters because we can laugh at the same merchandise. We did that, too.

My sisters have taken up beading as a hobby. We found a bead shop and (surprise, surprise) shopped there. The owners tried to include me in this shopping spree, but I maintained my position of NO BEADING. It is apparently quite expensive to bead.

We had a funnel cake for supper one night. Isn't is wonderful to be on vacation? You can do just about anything on vacation. We got our powdered sugar encrusted funnel cakes and sat on a bench outside eating our treats. Powdered sugar was everywhere. And yet … we didn't die or anything. Not by the diet or by the mess.

It was time to leave and we had to go our separate ways. Since I was driving alone, I had to call in and check with the people who cared enough to worry about me that I got back to the main road without traveling to the Appalachian Trail again.

I'm home now. It's very quiet again. My sisters both made it home safely, as well. I can't wait until we can all get together again.