Country Roots
Welcome back y'all! This week I am writing to you from the mountains of Tennessee, home of whiskey, moonshine and my family! Yeah, yeah, start the Hicks in Tennessee jokes now. It's nice to get away from the city and spend a little time in the country every now and again. The air is clean, the noise is gone and the time is what I want it to be. No deadlines, no traffic; nothing but relaxation, family and sunshine.
Tennessee is where my mothers side of the family is from and boy oh boy are there a lot of them down here. I've met relatives of relatives of people I didn't even know existed until a few years ago and it's been rather interesting and fun. I arrived on Friday night and spent the night with my aunt and grandma, my parents would arrive the next day. It takes about seven hours to drive here from Raleigh and as always, driving through the mountains was both fun and beautiful. I would zip around a turn and see a freshly soaked valley sparkling in the setting sun that stretched out for miles. I am myself a city boy, one who enjoys the comforts of a convenient life but I could get used to views like that. Even right now I am sitting on the back porch looking over some woods and while the view isn't spectacular its still more uplifting and inspiring than anything I typically find in the city.
Saturday was spent with my aunt and mam'ma traipsing about the backwoods of Tennessee far from the reach of cell phone towers. We were in a Mennonite community called Muddy Pond (yes, there is a muddy pond there too). I sampled home cooking and overpriced crafts for most of the day and by lunch I was pooped but we had much more to do still! The afternoon was spent getting to know a whole other side of my family here in Tennessee! Apparently I come from a long line of moonshiners, who knew?! It was neat to meet all of these people most of which I still don't know who they are nor how they are related to me. Unfortunately we thought we were eating at one, which didn't actually happen until three and some of the food went bad. I know this because I spent the remainder of Saturday night up with stomach pains and my poor mother (who arrived just in time to eat, unfortunately) got a bad case of salmonella and had to spend Sunday morning at the hospital getting checked out.
Sunday, as you can imagine, was a low key affair. I cooked breakfast for my dad while mom was away (my aunt is a nurse so we left my mother in her capable hands) and then spent the afternoon looking after my mama'ma. That night we got together with our California cousins (my mothers not my own) and celebrated our reunion and one of our members retirement. It was a really good time, full of fun, conversation and yummy pizza!
Maybe I am getting old but I would still call this a successful vacation. Sure, all I did was a whole lot of nothing but just being away from work, being surrounded by family was a great time. I might not of climbed any mountains to get chased by lions or punched a turkey in the face, heck I didn't even lay around the pool but I did a lot of relaxing and that's what vacation should be all about!
So the end of the month is looming fast and I must say that the new site revisions are not coming as fast as I had hoped. Next week I need to focus on getting new stories together and getting a Special Topics completed as well as completing the new forums which means that site revisions will be on the back burner. When will they come? Soon I think, just not next week as hoped. Aside from that everything is going well, I am super busy but I am enjoying it and learning what I can do with the new site is fun (learning how to do it is another mater :P) Next weekend the party train keeps on rolling as I make my long sought after return to Georgia to visit friends. Until next time! Sayonara.
