We’re on our “annual” trip to my Bluff City hometown, and once again took the route up through the Carolinas and over the mountain. Damn, that is a nice scenic stretch to welcome you home. Someday I’ll actually stop at one of those overlooks and take a picture.

Seems it’s been exactly a year since our last visit, which was unintentional, but just the way things worked out. Likely we’ll be up once more this fall after James’ niece gets relocated from Chattanooga to Johnson City for school. I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason she chose ETSU, but I can’t help thinking she’s pulling, well, a me — where there’s a perfectly suitable, affordable college just down the road, but it’s just a tad too close to home. I went the other direction, relocating to Chattanooga. She’s moving from Chattanooga to here, but she’ll be burning up the same asphalt going back and forth for a while that I did. Strange how that trip gets shorter and shorter — note: xmas gift for Rachel, radar detector? =)

Spent a cherished Friday evening with my niece and her facebook hubby, patio Mad Greek, general hanging out, general catching up, then on to random bad-pool at Borderline before we lost them to zombie slayage on the X-box. Strange behavior for me after 20 years of not keeping in touch, I managed to text an old school bud and hang out with him Friday night, too. Not exactly sure how I let myself not do that for so very long. I’m sure it’s a contributing factor to only managing to visit once a year now.

Saturday has been mom day, and overall good. She’s been hovering near the brim of my tolerance on a couple of our usual issues, but I think we’re both managing to keep it reeled in and be on our best behavior with each other. Strangely, it doesn’t seem weird to me that mom and I fight so much, but it would be nice to make it through this visit without one.

She is thinner — and I’m sure it’s her budget/eating habits catching up with her. I can see why Wayne was so freaked. She has a new doctor’s office story, where her BP was actually normal for the very first time, like ever, in my lifetime. This trip we’ve meandered down some back roads and talked about nostalgic things (Johnson City airport, anyone?), made an attempt at finding some new clothes for her thinner frame, and even went out to eat at a place she’d never been. It’s been almost pleasant.

At least until we got home this evening with full-bellies and good-moods, and decided to tackle a little yard-work in the cool evening. When the city recently topped a line of mom’s trees in the front yard they claimed were too near the utility lines, they did such a poor job that she actually went into a pretty deep funk for a while. She devotes so much energy to her yard, that they had might as well have cut her leg off as butchered those trees. We’d only heard tale of them by phone, no pictures, but they were really just as bad as described — so James jumped right in to try to finish the job they city should have done.

That’s when we learned that this yard is actually a cursed, angry beast — it’s hungry, and it wants toes. Mom just about cut her big-toe off a couple months ago doing yard work, and still hungry, tonight the yard tried for James’. It drew blood, but we don’t think anything is broken. With  me in my vulnerable flip-flops, toes just asking to be eaten, and the light fading,  we all decided to retreat to the safety of the house.

Don’t know what tomorrow’s plans are — besides the long drive home. Perhaps we’ll do research on cleansing rituals to help ensure the safety of future toes on the lawn here, or perhaps we’ll just make a trip to buy actual shoes suitable for yard-work. Definitely another lesson for Mom in how to use her new cellphone. Maybe one last attempt at a different store to find mom some pants that fit.

I did discover there’s something called Jake Legg’s Lost State Bus Tours around Johnson City that sound interesting — though I don’t know if they’re really currently operating. It’s a crazy bus that’s been converted to living room seating and tables, offering a couple-hour, humorous “Lost State of Franklin” tour and is BYOB. We also talked about Bristol Caverns, because I haven’t been there since I was a kid, but it occurred to me that I’ve never actually been into nearby Appalachian Caverns, which opened in 1991 after I’d already moved away. If not this visit, maybe later in the fall on the next trip. Definitely want to think about bringing appropriate attire for a wild-cave tour or some hiking next trip, as well. Yay for actually having things to look forward to for a return trip!

Johnson City Airport pics for Joyce & Angela. I cannot believe how much time we spent in the summers in that little room that looks like it was awkwardly set onto the top of the building. I think this was the first time I’ve ever been there since I was old enough to make the drive myself.

I think I totally scored on cooking duty, with sandwich stuff, salad stuff and a potato casserole made beforehand as my responsibilities. Felt like such a slacker, we volunteered to make a Saturday morning grocery run for some beverage refills. The beer might have lasted longer if people hadn’t kept dropping their open bottles into the hot tub — apparently when you’re all steamy and sitting in bubbles (and it’s not your first adult beverage) glasses and bottles are difficult to grip.

It was a bit cooler in Blue Ridge, but still the south, so still miserably humid and in the 90s. A/C in the cabin was rocking, and after dark, the hot tub was more than bearable. Friday night we rocked out the hot tub and ran through the beverage supplies so well that it could not be repeated on Saturday. We made a mild attempt, but Saturday night was made for booze and bad pool… and celebrating engagements. The Sniper-Couple can tell the story best, but the rest of us were just happy to have been there for there for the news.

Great day, great dinner, followed by late night driving around again looking for photo vantage points of the shuttle by night. Alarm is set for 6:30AM so why am I still up goofing on the computer? Oh yeah… walked so much today my calves won’t stop twitching.

Anywho… little photo follow me action

Follow Me: Twitter

• Sand sea turtle http://twitpic.com/1nioee 7 hrs ago
• Shuttle gear @ da pier. http://twitpic.com/1nikur 7 hrs ago
• Spying on da cruz ships… http://twitpic.com/1nibld 8 hrs ago
• Space View Park http://twitpic.com/1nhiyn 10 hrs ago
• Jetty park =] http://twitpic.com/1ng7wl 13 hrs ago

I now have 5 New Years Eve DVDs ready to, 3 to send for Birthdays this weekend, 1 for JT’s Dad and 1 for his mom/grandparents. We’re supposed to disappear this weekend — out of phone/internet contact — to r.e.l.a.x. if we can at a cabin with Kit & Bob in north Georgia. Checkout leaves us on the road fairly early Sunday, and we’re debating popping on up to Ringgold to drop off a couple DVDs of the show.

I, of course, need to buy more blank DVDs.

I still have work items to complete.
I still have to pack.
I still have to get birthday cards to go with the DVDs… and DVD mailers… and mail them…

And here it is again, midnight-thirty and my brain is wired from another full day-evening planted in front of the computer doing interesting/frustrating things.

I need to wind down and sleep, so I can get up and finish things, so we can … relax.

Yeah, wish me luck.

Sunday: Cuyamaca Rancho State Park to Julian, CA (elevation 4235 feet) to pick up the frewtnut great niece at girl scouts – Julian Cafe knows apple-pumpkin pie – Then Rifftrax for The Matrix

Monday: Balboa Park: San Diego Zoo (It’s turtle mating season), San Diego Automotive Museum (Ferrari!)

Tuesday: Guy/Girl Day, where JamesT hangs out with the senior chief. I do lunch with niece at Taco Salsa (where they know her name and told on her that she’d just been there the day before) then go shopping and see Twilight at Otay Ranch mall.

Wednesday: Balboa Park: San Diego Aerospace Museum (with the Star Trek experience!), San Diego Natural History Museum, lunch at outdoor sidewalk dining on Coronado, then dinner at PF Changs, B&N and Bolt at Otay Ranch mall.

Thursday: biscuits & gravy to hold us over until turkey & ham to hold us through Wall-E to hold us through pumpkin pie, pecan pie & cheesecake (then Maalox)

Friday: SeaWorld, leftovers, and Rifftrax for “Spiderman”

Saturday: “What the Dickens?” at Balboa Park, complete with Christmas carols and grown men in elf outfits, then a drive up to Del Mar to photograph the sunset and have dinner at Jake’s Del Mar

Sunday: San Diego Wild Animal Park (great-niece in control of my camera!), pop our In-n-Out Burger cherry, and leftover pie!

Monday: Chillout with more shopping and Quantum of Solace at Angela’s mall – which is Plaza Bonita Westfield in National City. Seriously, she did that. Order pizza, watch tv, more chill out and stay up way too late for our last night.

Tuesday: Hug great-niece 2 more times before school, leave her tons of silly notes, hugemongous brunch with niece (and eventually her hubby) at F-Hop, more hugs, ride to airport where we lament not having driven around by the water in San Diego more this visit before then, more hugs, then home.

The Southwest Experience^TM has pretty much already been documented, but it should be noted that at about 2am, when we finally got home, Kitty was only somewhat insanely happy to see us and the only thing trashed from her having run of the house for 10 days was the San Diego shotglass that I’d bought on my first visit, which she’d knocked off onto the tile by the front door and smashed but good. James’ reaction, “Kitty, you could have just called us.” Yeah, we were tired.

If more fun could have been had, we couldn’t have survived it. We have 3 billion pictures to sort through.