The Weirdness of My Life

Gulf Shores Alabama
Anchors Away CG




RV living is strange. I wouldn’t call it totally weird, but it certainly is an odd way of being.

First of all, the mushrooms. Yesterday, I looked down at the wall next to the toilet and there, at the juncture of the wall and floor, was a big old mushroom like the one in this picture, growing in the crack. We’d had rain a couple of nights running, so I guess some moisture got in there and … but wait, aren’t mushrooms propagated from spores? I have mushrooms in the refrigerator, but they haven’t been out for a walk since I put them there a week ago. They’re probably busy shriveling and weeping, getting ready to be thrown out, the typical fate of the mushrooms I buy. So where did this rogue fungus come from? I hesitate to consider. Let’s just say it’s one of the strange events that happen in this RV.

Second, I can appreciate a missing sock in an 8-room house with its attendant nooks and crannies. But when you do the wash in a 2x3 space (that’s inches, by the way), how does one sock escape? Is it now seeking its future in the outside world? Is it now standing by the highway, thumbing (or more correctly, toeing) its way to Florida and the warm weather? Did it enlist the dog to sneak it out the door? What was his reward for such treachery? I’m the one with the doggy treats, not my sock.

Third, when your one carpet is both your entry mat and your living room rug, you end up shampooing it weekly. And since there’s no room for a Bissell in this rig, it’s hands and knees, baby, the way the pilgrims probably cleaned their carpets. I didn’t sign on for the Luddite lifestyle.

Fourth, when was the last time your toaster flew off the counter?

Fifth, how many scales have you broken without even standing on them? How insulting.

Sixth, does your mate yell, “Turn on the diesel,” when the shower water turns chilly?

Seventh, does your whole house shake when the dryer gets going? Wait. Maybe that's not as weird as I think it is.

Eighth, are your overhead cabinets not really over head, but at head, so that you crack your skull at least twice a week? I’ve always thought that 5’3” was short. Now I discover it’s life threatening.

Ninth, no junk mail. Which is a good thing, I think, although I miss my catalogs. On the other hand, I must have saved $60,000 so far.

Tenth, no mail. Not a good thing. The forwarding service we hired is wonderful; the DHL service they’re using is decidedly sub-standard. We just got mail from two months ago. The late fees from our credit cards are eating up my $60M savings.

I’m sure if I worked hard enough at this list, it could go up to 100, but I remind you that I am retired, which means permission to be lazy. When I think of another ten, I’ll write another blog. Meantime, I’m going on a mushroom hunt. I have a thing about sharing my private time with a shitaki.

Betty

A Hot Adventure

Cloud Nine RV Resort
Hot Springs, AK

Here we are, perched at the top of a mountain, enjoying the 82-and-breezy weather. Earlier today we went into Hot Springs National Park, having visited the Baths yesterday. The park is unusual in that it surrounds the town’s main street, which is not parkland. Everything else is. But it’s the street of bathhouses through the center of town that is really unique. Some pictures follow.

The hot springs are really hot and throw a lovely mist over every fountain and stream. I read that the water has to be cooled so people don’t get scalded. It’s 145 degrees when it comes through the pipes. There is a central fountain equipped with faucets where you can fill your bottles and containers with the water, which is reportedly very pure and good tasting. I’ll let you know on that one. Our jugs are still way too hot to drink.

The town was famous from the 1800’s on, and especially in the early 1900’s, before modern medicine, when “taking the waters” was thought to cure just about everything. Some of the old time pictures of wealthy people relaxing in their individual tubs and being attended to by African Americans, who of course were not allowed in the waters, gives one pause for thought.

The big news about Hot Springs, however, is that it is the boyhood home of President Bill Clinton (“Billy”) and it would appear that the town is dedicated to him. I was so, so tempted to point out that he is MY neighbor now, not theirs. But in the interests of North-South harmony, I held my tongue.

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Middle America

Here's a list of the fast food and chain restaurants I saw along a mile and a half strip in Hot Springs Arkansas. No wonder America's middle is expanding.
Applebee
Arby
Bennigan’s
Buffalo Wild Wings
Burger King
Chik fil A
Chili’s
Cracker Barrel
Domino’s
Hardee’s
Huddle House
I Hop
KFC
King Buffet
Longhorn’s
McDonald’s
Olive Garden
Outback
Papa John’s
Pizza Hut
Popeye’s
Quiznos
Red Lobster
Ruby Tuesday
Scoops
Sonic
Starbucks
Subway
Taco Bell
Waffle House
Wendy’s
Notably missing from the list is Dunkin' Donuts. How can they establish significant growth without a Dunky's in the morning?

Betty

A Diller a Dollar

West Memphis, Arkansas
Parked by the Mississippi
On the way to Alabammy

You can tell me I’m a hick. You can tell me I’m a redneck. You can tell me I’m cheap, low-class, addicted to bargains. You can tell me anything you want. But don’t tell me I can’t shop at the dollar store.

Once I got out of the big city and into small-town America, I encountered a phenomenon that was so alluring, so captivating, so full of promise I just couldn’t resist it. A store so full of bargains you’d never stop spending your dollars. All of them.

In every small town across America, I am hypothesizing, there exists at least one dollar store – A Dollar General – and more often than not, a second one -- Family Dollar. I’ve seen as many as two Dollar Generals and two Family Dollars on one block.

I guess they buy overstocks of basic items like cosmetics, groceries, tee shirts, household cleaners and candy – aisles and aisles of candy – and sell them well below the ordinary price.

What a find! Yesterday I was in Bowling Green Kentucky on the outskirts of town, and I spied the Dollar Store, so of course I had to check it out. I ended up buying flavored rice, mushroom soup, a ton of plastic plates, napkins, Corian countertop cleaner and a velour jacket and pants in my favorite washable polyester, all for a grand total of $29.

Not only that, when I walked unto the store this morning WEARING the pants that turned out to be enormous on me, they happily let me exchange them for a smaller size, and lent me their bathroom to make the switch.

Now that’s my kind of store.

It occurs to me that the one thing I would invest in, during this time of craziness in the stock market, is Dollar General or Family Dollar, and given that their stock was exactly the same and laid out in exactly the same merchandising configuration, I suspect they are one and the same store. So consider this a stock tip from one redneck, bargain hunting, low-riding chick. I’m sitting here typing in my polyester warmup suit, happy as a clam.

Or maybe even happier, since clams rarely shop at dollar stores.

A Mammoth Adventure

One of the goals we’ve set for ourselves on this great adventure is to see all the National Parks in the country. We’ve already been to Acadia in Maine and the Grand Canyon, but all I remember of the Grand Canyon is the small-plane tour with both kids throwing up in my brand-new Coach bag. So I think we’ll visit that one again.

A few days ago, we arrived in Bowling Green for the express purpose of visiting Kentucky’s own natural wonder, Mammoth Cave, about 30 miles north of the city which, by the way, is tiny by New York standards. Tarrytown is twice as big.

We stayed in a campground just off the Interstate, right in the middle of what I am coming to know as the typical strip mall suburbs of America, with every bad food restaurant ever invented.

Mammoth Cave is so named, not for the wooly mammoths that never lived there in prehistory, but for the fact that it is mammoth. As in enormous. We took the historic tour, tracing the path of the aboriginal native Americans, when they were wanderers, alone and in small family groups, before they were tribal. They used the cave, with its something like 237 miles of tunnels, for four thousand years before abandoning it to outside living. And presumably, sunburn.

The cave was rediscovered in the 1700’s, and then was used for mining saltpeter for use in gunpowder during the Revolution. (And I always thought saltpeter’s primary use was to de-randify young men in private schools.) Once the war was over, the mining operations were no longer profitable so they were discontinued, and the cave was turned into an early tourist attraction. I saw initials and names with dates like 1839 and earlier. Today, writing on the walls is forbidden, but I did find the visitor history fascinating.

The visitors on my tour, by the way, were a bunch of High School kids from Arkansas, Kentucky, North Carolina and Idaho, in town for a National Conference of the FFA, which turned out to be the Future Farmers of America. Yes, Virginia, there still are kids who aspire to the land, only now they take courses like Ag Science and Meat Processing. They were silly, and typical, but attentive and respectful to the guide, although the lights did go out briefly three times during the tour and the girls all shrieked every time.

Inside the cave, the mining operation stands as it did 250 years ago, with the original lumber and water- sluicing pipes created out of hollowed out trees. The paths through the caves were widened and elevated where necessary by slaves who created massive walkways, each man carrying one shovel of dirt at a time.

Our two-hour tour took us only a mile or so into the cave, but we were satisfied with what we learned and enchanted by what we saw. It was cool and dry, which also accounts for the fact that we saw no stalagmites or stalactites, which are caused by dripping water. There are some elsewhere in the cave, but not on the "Historic Tour." We went down to about 320 feet below the surface, bending over to negotiate some passageways, and slipping sideways through the narrow ones. I was glad to be only 5’3” and thin enough not to embarrass myself.

The return trip was interesting, because after two miles of walking, we had to climb 255 steps up to the surface. I would have preferred a Disney mining car that rode on a little rail and winched us up to the surface, but the US Government seems to think that low lighting, the original bumpy pathways and a lung-bursting climb up to the surface all add to the experience. Oh god, how many more of these National Parks with their authentic experiences are we to endure?

On the other hand, our guide was older than we were, and he does this twice a day, sometimes more, so who am I to complain?

Damn overachiever.

Betty

Whew!

Hog Heaven Gun Club
White Pine Tennessee

John's observation: Well, at least they have the six food groups.

Betty

EEEEEE Mail

Swansea, SC

Riverbottom Farm CG
Hey Tish!

I just got back from Congaree (River) National Park in South Carolina. Not to be confused with the Pee Dee, Swanee, Catahootchie and other eeee sounding rivers.

It's one of the only -- and tallest-- swamp forests in the world. We took the short trail, about 2 1/2 miles on a raised boardwalk, and looked at the Loblolly Pines, and the towering Swamp Cypresses, and other incredible flora -- but no fauna except for one little green newt and a grey squirrel. Beautiful and eerie.

Miss you guys.

Betty