And we're back...

We took off last week and headed for the beach, specifically Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Sun, sand, surf... good times. Coincidentally, I spent most of them indoors.

Einstein's grandmother lives just a stone's throw away from the beach, but Kitty Bill came down with a funk enroute, and I spent the first few days holed up inside coddling him back into a reasonable state of health. By the last day of our trip he was feeling well enough to sit under an umbrella on the sand and finger some seashells.

We had a great time visiting with the relatives, which was the real purpose of our trip anyway. Nurturing our relationships so they don't crumble like sandcastles when the tide rolls in. This goes for our nuclear family unit, as well. It's amazing what spending two days in the car together will do for a family. We learned quite a few things about each other:

1. Einstein and I are getting older.
We think we're still young and invincible, but our bodies betray us. Long gone are the days when we could actually sleep on any pitted concrete slab the low-end motel chains feign to pass off as a "bed." On our return route we kicked in a few more dollars on a nicer place and were giddy with delight to discover high-end matresses with memory foam.*

2. I'm Henry the Eighth I am
Can be sung more times than necessary on the drive from Asheville, NC to Louisville, KY. It's a good way to accidentally practice counting and rank. "Second verse, same as the first..." "Third verse, same as the first..." "Eighty-ninth verse, same as the first..." Whew, boy. Einstein will die a happy man if he never, ever hears that song again.

3. There are not enough books
Sunburst reads much more voraciously than we had anticipated. We had lugged along a huge stack of books to begin with, but somehow she managed to polish them all off on the way to South Carolina. For the trip home we picked up a copy of The Wizard of Oz. It barely lasted the two day stretch.

4. It's not the destination that matters, it's the journey.



The bridge in Louisville. Heading into the storm.





The windshield wipers were actually on... somewhere in Kentucky.





Asheville, NC. An artist's paradise, and one of the easiest towns to be vegetarian in.



There was no shortage of cool things to see in Asheville:



The medicinal herb bench.





Star lamps. We were taken with them.





Hollywood Squares?





Knit hat wigs in the display window at a quilting store.


The best scenic view of the trip:



Veteran's Overlook on Clinch Mountain in Tennessee.






Oh, and the beach was nice, too...



*For those of you who must know, we stayed at the Ramada. The tv was also hidden away in an armoire, which was a huge bonus as far as we were concerned.