Whirlwind Week

One week ago, having lately thrown out my back and so cancelled a long-awaited fishing trip with Grandpa and James, we left Evanston for Danville to kick off the summer in earnest (Erica stayed home to greet her new niece, Luna).  I spent several of the next few days on muscle relaxers and on my back, while James turned full Tom Sawyer in the woods and around the lake, and Juliet followed in his wake. The days always run together in Danville in a good way.  TV, boating, fishing, grilling, repeat.  It's never too exciting, and that's perfect.  It's important for the kids to spend time with their grandparents, but just as importantly, to get out of the city and away from their heavily-managed schedules. 

[Sidebar: my parents really did do it right.  Stick with one job for three decades so that you can retire young in a place where the dollar goes farther than practically anywhere else in America, travel a bunch on an increasing income that comes at the taxpayers' expense, and buy a swanky house you couldn't afford anywhere not named Gary or Detroit, which sits on grounds that abut a big lake you usually have to yourself.  I mean, geez.  Sure they were lucky enough to have be born at a time of enormous political stability where market conditions made wealth accumulation much easier than it is for young people today (though that's mainly down to their generation basically pulling the ladder up behind themselves), but still.  Geez.  There are worse ways to go about things.] 

On Thursday, we attended a Danville Dans game (they play in the Prospect League--a wooden bat summer league for top college players hoping to get scouted by a professional team). In typical James fashion, he got sidelined the moment he walked in by an usher who invited him to throw out the first pitch (Juliet also got asked, but chickened out at the last minute).  

 

Erica got down on Friday and worked the day while we did some last rounds of boating and fishing, and then we piled in the car and headed to the Red Roof Inn in Cave City, KY (don't recommend) for the night, so as to be ready for our morning tour of Mammoth Cave National Park.  Everyone else fell asleep by 10:30pm, but I just could not drop off, and I waited...and waited...and...didn't sleep at all.  Like, no hours of sleep.  Just lying there in my bed for 8 hours listening to everyone else sleeping, but not being able to turn on a light or watch tv or move to a different room.  

In the morning, I abused caffeine just to get me through the tour.  We met up with the Bondi family, who were, as the fates would have it, also passing through on their way to Hilton Head.  We did the 10am "Historic Tour," which is basically the main tour of the largest sections of the cave.  If you don't know, Mammoth Cave is the world's longest cave system (over 400 mapped miles!), and has been hosting curious surface dwellers for over 200 years.  In the early days, it was basically just hucksters taking rubes on, frankly, dangerous, torchlit explorations, but the Civilian Conservations Corps fitted it with lights and proper pathways decades ago, and today just about anyone can waltz their way through two hours of caving with only some minor bending and squeezing required.  It's super boss and you should go.  Cheers to the cave, jeers to the loud family behind us on the tour who not only incessantly talked over the docent, but who outfitted their children with glow sticks, and so ruined the famous "total darkness" lights out bit everyone had been looking forward to.  Here are some snappers:

Uncle Tony feelin' the squeeze of "Tall Man's Misery"

The 190 ft. vertical shaft, "Mammoth Dome" 

Our longsuffering tour guide trying to talk over the rude, noisy family behind us

After our tour we drove to Atlanta, to a pretty meh LaQuinta Inn (also don't recommend) in some faceless business corridor.  The kids hit the pool (which smelled suspiciously like natural gas--Erica reported it) before collapsing into bed.  On Sunday, we dropped Erica off at Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport--the world's busies airport!--did you know?  And I kept on driving south to Jacksonville to spend a lovely evening with my Uncle Mike at his new home.  The kids were happy to go swimming and fishing in the cool lake in his backyard (confession: I did worry about gators being in the lake, but there were lots of people swimming about, so safety in numbers?), where James and Juliet both caught fish, and Juliet--after a 2+minute ordeal--managed to take her little fish off the hook and throw it back all by herself!  

I hardly slept again for no reason, but I did get enough sleep to get us through the last leg of the journey.  We spent a few boiling-hot, 100+ - degree hours in the lovely and lovingly-preserved St. Augustine, FL, American's oldest European-founded city.  It's got a 16th century castle and everything.  The real highlight, IMHO, is the Flager College main building, which was built in the 1880s in the Spanish Renaissance Revival Style.  Wowee zowee, check the pic below.  Granted, St. Augustine mines the tourist dollar very obviously and effectively, but they do have some legit gems, and even an oven-hot afternoon passes quickly for the historically-minded tourist.

Seriously, it was so hot. Juju definitely got in that fountain.

[Sidebar #2: the city is apparently pronounced Saint AUGUS-teen, although the saint himself is Saint Au-GUS-tin.  He remains a giant in the Western theological and philosophical tradition, and basically invented both the Western conception of the self (see his Confessions), and the separation of the church and state (see his City of God Against the Pagans).  I don't think I'm out of line to suggest that the city ought to look into why it doesn't pronounce itself correctly.]

Geez, this is a long entry.  Anyway, we finally drove to Cape Canaveral and got into the condo.  I'll write about our time here later (preview: days here are like days in Danville.  They are all great and blend together.)