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strange sights from urban Atlanta

Yesterday, around 6:30pm, a hayride went down my street, tractor and all.

posted by CP @ 11:57 AM 1 thoughts

why I camp in a tent and will never own an RV

From Bill Bryson's The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America:

What slowed the traffic here were the massive motor homes lumbering up and down the mountain passes. Some of them, amazingly, had cars tethered to their rear bumpers, like dinghies. I got stuck behind one on the long, sinuous descent down the mountain into Tennessee. It was so wide that it could barely stay within its lane and kept threatening to nudge oncoming cars off into the picturesque void to our left. That, alas, is the way of vacationing nowadays for many people. The whole idea is not to expose yourself to a moment of discomfort or inconvenience-- indeed, not to breathe fresh air if possible. When the urge to travel seizes you, you pile into your thirteen-ton tin palace and drive 400 miles across the country, hermetically sealed against the elements, and stop at a campground where you dash to plug into their water supply and electricity so that you don't have to go a single moment without air-conditioning or dishwasher and microwave facilities. These things, these RVs, are like life-support on wheels.

posted by CP @ 5:58 PM 3 thoughts

epiphany

Last Sunday night, in the midst of a four hour PSC meeting, my mind began to wander. I began to ponder life post-PSC. Some friends were at a concert I had wanted to attend, but could not because of PSC. I began to think about all of the free time that I would have, of all of the things that I would again be able to do. I pondered a season with few responsibilities and time to just be.

Train for a marathon. Teach children's sunday school. Lead a Bible study. Get more done at work. Go to more concerts. Hang out with my friends more. Have a quality yearbook. Travel more. Read more. Just be.

And then it hit me.

That season will never come for me.

I know people who have those seasons of relative quiet. I've just never had one myself. I thrive when I am busy and have 8000 things going on. My life is not going to slow down.

Laura just laughed when I told her, unable to understand why it was such a revelation to me.

posted by CP @ 8:48 AM 2 thoughts

discrete incidents

Its been a rough week. There are a lot of frustrating things about my job and I don't normally like to post about them, because there are a lot more good things to outweigh them. However, there were some chart-toppers this week.

Tuesday morning, I was booting up my computer at about 7:20 when our building engineer walked into my room. He often pokes his head into my room to see how the temperature is and since it was about 60 degrees in my room, I thought this was his purpose again. Instead, he asked me if anything was ruined.

Ruined? I asked, as I began to look around my classroom more closely. I had noticed when I walked in that a number of desks and my overhead cart were displaced, but the custodians often move things around in order to clean.

He then explained that my classroom, along with 5 others on three different floors, had flooded the night before. How? A student shoved a soap dispenser into a toilet, packed it with paper towels, and flushed repeatedly. The water flooded through the 2 ceiling tiles directly above my overhead cart, ruining everything I had prepared to teach that day.

Thankfully, the projector still works. Sort of. It won't turn off. The only way I can turn it off now is to unplug it from the wall. Over-exaggerated pushing of the button attempting to turn it off has now been incorporated into my classroom comedy routine.

Thursday morning, I arrived at the intersection of Northside Dr and W. Wesley, less than a block from school, to find the road blocked and detour signs. I knew how to get around it, got there and tried to figure out what was going on. A water main break. About 100 yards from school. Boil water advisory which wasn't lifted until Friday afternoon. Yet we still had school.

Oh yeah, and my principal, whom I have the utmost respect for and had told us that he would retire from our school, announced that he is leaving. I cried. Wept may be a more apt word.

Just as I was convicted the other week when Christina prayed that our hope would not be in a senior pastor, but in Christ, I realized that I had put my hope in this man for fixing our school, instead of in Christ and his promise to redeem the world.

posted by CP @ 11:42 AM 1 thoughts

good decision

So I thought about heading to Six Flags this morning for The Bert Show's Ditch Day, but according to what Jessica said, I made a very wise decision to just stay in bed!

posted by CP @ 12:39 PM 1 thoughts

Finishing up

The next morning we again rode our bikes to the beach where we lay in the sun for 2 hours and read.

From there, we headed to Tallahassee, home of my alma mater, where I had not been in four years. En route, we stopped at the Leon Sinks Geological Area. The wet sinks kind of reminded me of the hot springs at Yellowstone, except that they are formed totally differently. We also stopped at Wakulla Springs State Park where they filmed some episodes of Flipper, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and at least one Tarzan movie. It was uneventful except for the black snake whose path we crossed on our brief hike. It made me scream and reminded me of summer camp when Jack Page would routinely pick up blacks snakes that would subsequently bite him.

We drove into Tallahassee from the southside of town and I was immediately disoriented. All of the road names were familiar; I knew I had traversed them many atime, but I could not for the life of me remember how they intersected or how to get where I wanted to be. Maybe that was a hint that I should return to FSU more frequently than every four years.

Our first stop was Ryan and Katie's house, my dear friends from summer camp whom I had not seen for 3 years when they lived in Chicago. Though my time with them was brief, it was so good to see them, meet their two boys, and catch up a bit on each others' lives. They are the kind of wonderful friends you can drop in on with 30 minutes notice, even when you haven't seen each other in three years. Visiting with them added to my determination to return to Tallahassee more frequently.

Then we headed to dinner with some of my friends from FSU at Gordo's. Gordo's was the place I had been craving for the 4 years since I had last been in Tallahassee- the last time I was in town, I drove straight there to meet Eva for dinner. It was a delightful time of catching up with them, meeting Karen and Dave's 2 daughters, and eating yummy food.

Eva then gave us some semblance of a campus tour, focusing on the statue and stained glass windows of Bobby Bowden which now adorn Doak Campbell Stadium. The statue I can understand, but a stained glass window? Please.

The next morning, after spending the night with Eva, we headed back north to Georgia. This time, we stopped at FDR state park, near FDR's Little White House, in Pine Mountain. It was a cloudy, foggy, cool day and we realized we were only an hour from home, we decided to return to Atlanta that day. We did stop to hike a loop around Dowdell's Knob, FDR's favorite picnic spot. The weather was too foggy to make the views what they had been touted. After the hike, we headed to the Little White House, arriving at 4:30. Signs indicated that the last ticket was sold at 4:45 and the site closed at 5. However, the employee expressed her hope that we could come back at 9am to visit and informed us that they closed in ten minutes. Deciding not to argue, we drove into Warm Springs where we had some tasty ice cream, sat in rockers on the sidewalk watching cars go by, and pondered life in a small town.

Labels: travel

posted by CP @ 9:51 AM 2 thoughts

Further travels

Upon leaving the campground, we headed back east into Georgia. We drove through Eufaula, one of the most picturesque towns I've ever seen in the South. I've driven through Eufaula many times en route from Auburn to Tallahassee and because my grandmother was born and my great-grandparents are buried across the river in Georgetown, GA. This weekend, however, was the Eufaula Pilgramage. We noticed that many old homes were available for tours and saw signs for an art show and for tickets, so we parked and got out to walk around. Since we could not immediately locate the place to purchase tickets, we walked down the row of artist's booths, finally arriving at the Eufaula Lions Club trailer, set up to sell typical festival fare. In my politest voice, I asked the man if he could tell me what exactly was going on. He explained to me that this was the Eufaula Pilgrimage and that we could buy tickets down at the Presbyterian Church. I was rather dissatisfied with his explanation, as I read the signs indicating that it was the Eufaula Pilgrimage and my lack of understanding predicated my question. Similarly, he did not seem to understand how I could not know what the Pilgrimage was and why such a question would be necessary. I cannot recall a time when I have felt like more of an outsider in the South.

We headed back to the Presbyterian Church to find that tickets did not go on sale until noon. As it was 11:30, we decided to wait. That is, until we realized that it was 11:30 EDT and we were in Central Time. Alas, we drove on into Georgetown where they have built a new road that no longer winds past the home my grandmother was born in.

This time, St Georges Island state park in Florida was our destination. After a drive through the Apalachicola National Forest, we arrived around 5 and secured a campsite. Upon driving to our campsite, we found it to be occupied. Neither the rangers nor the campground host were particularly helpful, so I sat down with a book to await the return of the intruders while Kate made tea. They arrived around 5:45, explained the situation and assured me that they would be clearing out quickly, moving to the campsite across the road. I assumed "quicky" would mean about 5 minutes, so I rejoined Kate at the car and she drove around to our site to wait, tea in hand. After one of the women made her fourth trip across the road carrying supplies (this time, a microwave), we realized that we had disparate definitions of "quickly" and decided to put on our bathing suits. We also realized that we were parked right in front of someone else's campsite and they were staring intently at the proceedings.

Having changed into our suits, we were finally able to pull into our campsite about 6:30. The women were very apologetic and offered us 4 mangoes for our pains, which we of course took.

We rode our bikes to the beach, to find it high tide with wonderful warm water to splash and play in. Sadly, the beach faced east, so as it neared sunset we headed back to our campsite and to a part of the island that faced west. Armed with mangoes, we raced down a 2.5 mile trail, hoping to reach the end of the trail in time to see the sunset. Although the sun ducked behind the clouds and we missed it, I was able to revel in eating a mango straight out of the peel, dribbling its juices all over myself.

Labels: travel

posted by CP @ 3:55 PM 2 thoughts

spring break spontanaeity

I've been feeling rather alliterative of late. Hopefully it will not spill out past the title.

Kate and I had planned to go to Mammoth Cave NP, KY and take one of the more difficult cave tours that involved headlamps and knee pads. However, in April they only offer such tours on the weekends and by the time Kate called Friday to make a reservation for Sunday, any tour remotely exciting and off the beaten bath was booked. So we decided to change directions and headed south with the vague intentions of hitting Georgia state parks and the beach, with the possibility of the FSU Flying High Circus thrown in.

Saturday morning, we packed up my car, threw in our bikes and headed south towards Providence Canyon State Park, billed "Georgia's Little Grand Canyon." I was prepared to be underwhelmed. We took a detour to Buena Vista, GA hoping to see Pasaquan. Unfortunately, it now costs $100 for a group of 4 to tour it, so that idea was quickly nixed. We did however pass through Preston, GA on our way back to Providence Canyon, where I discovered that while I had my camera with me, its memory card remained in my laptop at home.

Upon arriving at Providence Canyon around 3:30, we learned that they had only backcountry camping, which we were not prepared for, and that the only 2 nearby Georgia state parks had no open campsites. Since the park closes at 6, we decided to go ahead and hike the 3+ mile loop. As my expectations were so low, I was rather impressed with the canyon. "Little Grand Canyon" is a bit of a misnomer- Kate said it was much more like Bryce which I haven't seen to agree with. While years ago, it had been greatly defaced by tourists, they've done a good job of ending that destruction and much of the graffiti has eroded away. It only began as a canyon around 1850 and is now 100 feet deep- I'm not sure if it is still deepening, but that means at least 8 inches of deepening a year!
We headed out of the park around 6 and headed for Alabama. My GA/AL map indicated that there were a number campsites on the border, near Eufaula. The first we actually found was Lakepointe Resort State Park, right on Lake Eufaula, so we stayed. Our camp site was right on the lake and we sat and read on the beach until it started raining. The next morning was a beautiful day and we rode our bikes to the marina and poked around before heading south again.

Days 2-4 to follow...

Labels: travel

posted by CP @ 9:54 AM 1 thoughts