Simple Pleasures

Ain't that the truth

 

Today, we took a leisurely, 30-minute drive to Edgefield, SC, the seat of the mostly rural county where we live. It's a nice drive. There is a butcher shop there where I like to buy some of our meat. I like it because it is a small town, family-owned business. They are friendly, have good quality meat, and the prices are pretty good. We didn't go to the butcher shop today. My freezer's full.

We've never been fancy people. Neither of us grew up that way. And even while having a relatively successful, good paying career, we pretty much stuck to our pretty modest lifestyle. No fancy houses, clothes, or cars. We've done some traveling. Carol and I have cruised the Caribbean, vacationed in the Virgin Islands, skied in Colorado, spent time in San Francisco, San Diego, Dallas, Phoenix/Sedona/Flagstaff/Grand Canyon, Orlando, Miami, Niagara Falls, and most of New England, among other places. We've been to Israel, Italy, and Korea together. Most of our vacations have been by car to destinations within 4-6 hours of our house (some of my favorite family times.) Our kids spent a lot of their childhood vacation time in our car but, also had a few airline vacations.

Kaya, our 15-year old black lab mix, has always loved riding in the car. I drive an old Tahoe so, with the back seats down she has plenty of room in the back. I put her dog bed back there along with a non-spill water bowl and off we go.

During one of my butcher shop trips a while back, Carol and Kaya came along. There is a McDonald's across the street from the butcher shop so, after putting my purchase in the cooler, we went through the drive-thru. Carol always gets a kid's meal because she eats like a bird, I usually get 2 cheeseburgers, and I ordered a plain hamburger for Kaya. Then we drove downtown to see if there was a parking space on Edgefield's very simple, but pretty square.

It was a beautiful, sunny, warm-but-not-hot day, We parked, rolled down the windows (actually I just used the buttons,) and settled in for our fancy meal. I took Kaya's plain burger around to the back, raised the lift gate, and pulled apart the bun and hamburger patty into her travel food bowl. She gobbled it up about as fast as I could break it apart. She was so happy.

Ever since that first time, anytime I've needed to go to the butcher, Carol and Kaya have ridden with me and we do our meal-in-the-car-on-the-square-thing. In December we ate our gourmet food while listening to Christmas carols that were playing outside (we live in the south... still warm enough to have the windows at least partially down.)

If you read my last post, (click here) you know that I'm taking Kaya to the vet this week (Thursday) because it is time for her to rejoin her sister, Maddie who we said goodbye to in 2022.

And if you read my two posts prior to that one, (click here) you also know what's going on with Carol's health.

So, today, I decided that we needed to have our McDonald's-on-the-square experience with sweet Kaya one more time. And Kaya isn't the only one that enjoys that simple pleasure. It's very enjoyable for Carol so... that's what we do.

Never take simple pleasures for granted. Because they are the best ones.

The Parkway

Cruella (Deville) and I on The Parkway

Have you ever been drawn to a place? Is there a place to where you almost seem called to be? For many, it is an ocean side or lake side, or river side location that is special to you. For others it might be a mountain top or maybe a meadow or a canyon. Still others may yearn for wind in their sail as they skip over a calm sea. There is so much beauty around us that it is no surprise that we find ourselves drawn to certain special places. For me...one of those special places is a road. It's not just any road...it is is a stretch of pavement that ribbons 469 miles over the ridges of the Appalachian Mountains from Virginia to North Carolina. It is the Blue Ridge Parkway. With its back to Shenandoah National Park, the parkway begins at Rockfish Gap near Waynesville, VA and it reaches its end at the Oconaluftee River at the entrance of Great Smoky Mountains National Park near Cherokee, NC. What is in between those two points is a road rich in history, culture, scenery, foliage and fauna.

Kancamagus Hwy- Rte 112 in New Hampshire

I have been traveling (camping/ hiking/ lazing) on and around the parkway since the mid 1970's, not long after moving from New Hampshire to Georgia. My wife and kids likely cannot remember a time when they weren't riding on the parkway with Dad (Oh gee Dad, look, there is another mountain or ...tree or...my gosh are we ever going to get off this parkway?) I was skeptical, upon my first visit, that this road would be at all comparable to the great highways like those that that snake through the White Mountains of New Hampshire and Green Moutains of Vermont. In particular, I was certain that this Blue Ridge Parkway was no match for the Kancamagus Highway that cuts 34.5 miles through White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire. But I was wrong. The Blue Ridge Parkway's beauty owes no apology to any other of our country's magnificent motorways.

Cabin at Humpback Rocks, VA

One of the things that makes this parkway unique is that it stretches across the backbone and valleys of the southern Appalachians and cuts through the mountain culture of the German and Scotch-Irish people that populated this area from the early days of our country's history. Unlike what happened when the Skyline Drive was built through Shenandoah National Park, this time the Department of the Interior was intentional in not evacuating the people and razing their cabins after purchasing their land. They were determined to maintain as many of the physical structures as possible that depicted the early 20th century mountain culture. In most ways, this isolated culture more resembled life from the preceding century. The depression era road building project began in 1935 utilizing the many unemployed of Virginia and North Carolina through the recently created Civilian Conservation Corp and was a project on the grandest scale. The final section around Grandfather's Mountain, NC, which included the building of the Linn Cove Viaduct, was completed in 1987.

Linn Cove Viaduct

Over the last week, I spent some time traveling along the parkway... once again being reminded of the beauty that is this region. While dodging deer, turkey, rabbits, squirrels and spandex clothed cyclists on my 45 mph journey, my senses were in overdrive as I was in awe once again to behold the majesty of God's creation. We always associate God's proximity to us as being....up. I think the mountains give us a sense of being closer to the One that created them...and us. I'll be back.

John Brown's a-Hanging on a Sour Apple Tree

Dumb car ride games

1955 Buick Special- built like a tank

As long as I can remember, one of my fondest memories was taking trips in the family car. The first car I remember us having was a 1955 Buick Special. This mammoth hunk of Detroit steel was built like an Abrams tank. Not exactly the best handling behemoth on the road but, good grief, did it have room inside! Back in the days of no seat belts and "three on the tree" manual transmission shifters, I would lay across the rear seat deck (under the rear window) as we rumbled down the road. If the brakes were ever slammed on, I would fly forward and crash into the rear of the front seats. Ah, the good ol' days.

To this day, I still love driving places on day trips, long weekends or even week long driving vacations. I love to stop at the trashiest tourist attractions and eat at places that Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives hasn't even found yet. A few years ago, Michael and I made an I-40 road trip from Augusta to Asheville, NC, to Knoxville, TN to Nashville and ended up in Memphis. Why? Our goal was to eat as many meals of barbecue ribs as we could, see Graceland, Sun Records Studio and hang out on Beale Street. Carol still thinks we are both nuts.

How cold is it?

After I had my own family, car trips or vacations would typically generate some interesting games or contests. Contests like...who can guess what the lowest outside temperature will be (according to the car's outside temp gauge) by the time we get to our hotel in the mountains? What time do you guess we will cross the river back into Georgia? (I always won this one...I had control over the speed of the car...) Only years later after acquiring some basic mathematical acumen of their own did the kids figure out how I could guess so accurately. (For the mathematically challenged...a car traveling 60 miles per hour will go a mile each minute...if the mile marker I just passed said we were 29 miles from the border...voila! it's gonna take 29 minutes. Of course I could also slow down or speed up as necessary in order to make the time I chose hit exactly when we crossed into the next state.) The kids thought Dad had some mysterious power.

One of the most interesting hour long games was: If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life and you were assured that it would be nutritionally adequate for good health, what would it be? The food could be prepared multiple ways but it had to basically be just one food item (condiments, simple additives are allowed.) First, I got screamed at that my question was ridiculous because no one could survive on just one food for the rest of their life. So I had to explain again the hypothetical caveat that whatever food you chose in my make believe scenario would be completely nourishing. Then I get a million clarifying questions asked. You would think I was asking them to jump off a bridge. Finally grasping the concept, they begin to give answers.

 I'm pretty sure Carol's answer was rice since Reese's Peanut Butter Cups were disallowed for being a candy not a food. Rice was a pretty good answer though...steamed rice, fried rice, rice pilaf...lot's of ways to enjoy rice and lots of different kinds of rice...Carol takes an early lead in the contest. I think Michael's answer was some type of meat...chicken or steak maybe...can't remember exactly. I was proud of my carnivorous son for giving a manly answer though. Jessica cheated and said something like salad. Buzzer goes off...no--- salad is not a single food ...do you mean lettuce? Then 15 minutes of arguing before Jessica picks another food item...I think it was a fruit. She kept thinking she needed to choose something healthy since it was the only thing she could eat for the rest of her life. Tiring of my silly game, I just let her stick with her fruit choice. Being a good ol' Irish boy, my pick was...potatoes. Boiled potatoes, mashed potatoes, crinkle french fries, scalloped potatoes, potatoes au gratin, hash browns, baked potato, potato chips, potato sticks, home fries, potato pancakes, waffle fries, curly fries, tater tots... I went on and on with my assortment of potato dishes.

The incredibly versatile potato

Then the the car just went quiet. They knew that Dad had won again. Then they all verbally attacked me for playing such a stupid game. Sore losers.

Fun times in the car with the family...having a blast playing silly games and actually...talking to each other (with a little shouting added in.) Turn off the radio, take out the earbuds, put down the book or computer and have a good old family competition. Dumb car games.

So, if you could only eat one food item for the rest of your life (and that food item would be nutritionally perfect for you) what would it be?