This is a National Recreation Area and it has a lot to offer like wildlife, fishing, a golden pond aquarium, and beautiful hikes and scenery; none of which was enjoyed by us as icy rain poured down on the RV as well as our nerves which wore very thin as we ate, drove and never left the vehicle.
This is not where the aggravation ended. We headed to Nashville to see friends Jason and Gen Glassman which was not aggravating in the least (quite the contrary), but the events that we encountered along the way were, well let me describe a few.
Mace Window
The Ezgur boys, with Mike as their merry ringleader are Star Wars lovers. Mike actually takes and dispenses many life theories and lessons from the complete saga. My favorite is the one he uses most often which is to remind each of us if we appear to have fallen victim to the dark side of the force (ie: letting negativity overtake us).
Anyway, being sequestered in the 'coach' (insiders term for RV), on the heels of sleeping in a Dairy Queen/7-11/Gas Station complex and staying up half the night still trying to organize the 9 duffel bags of toiletries, sundries, and notions made Mikey very sleepy.
I took over the wheel with Aidan as my co-pilot. All was going smoothly, we were singing and forgetting the words to You’re So Vein, when all of a sudden Aidan who is the ever-curious being, began playing with something in the dashboard container store type organizer that Mike bought. Well, again, I will let the video speak for itself (this is a re-enactment and no one was injured in the process).
Prius barely hangs on
The mace incident led into a getting lost incident, which led into a yelling and crying incident which led into a weird noise that was the Toyota Prius that we are towing almost falling off the tow dolly. I think we have determined that if it is raining, the straps holding the tires secure get stretched out and loose.
We are almost at the Glassman’s house and I realize that I have my coat on and am still wearing my pajamas at 8:00 at night. There is nothing like this type of a realization to make you feel just a little uneasy and whole lot looney.
Still pelting us with icy rain, we cannot get into the Glassman's driveway and have to detach the entire tow kit with the Prius. We try for an entire hour to level the RV on the steep Tennessee driveway to no avail. Everyone is trying to keep it together. The kids are being very helpful, Mike is staying very calm and we should all take a page from his book. But, hunger is our nemesis and it is well past dinnertime. Our gracious hosts, Jason and Gen are supportive and positive even after waiting for hours for our arrival. We still can't level the RV and Aidan, who worked tirelessly to help, begins to get very, very sad. I cannot calm him down which makes me begin to lose it, Rosie trips and hits her nose on something and is wailing, I basically tell she just needs to stop crying because we can't care about her nose at the moment, Charlie 'Sniper' has gone so deep undercover I don't even know where he is.
"We have to go to dinner right now!!!!", I scream and we pile into the cars and Jason and Gen take us to the perfect spot with quick bacon cheeseburgers and old school greasy fries served up faster than you can say, "RV stands for Retched Vehicle".
By the way, healthy eating also means mental health, and this meal certainly improved ours!
We stay in the complete comfort of Glassman home heaven because we couldn't level the RV. The space and complete comfort feels decadent!
