8:32pm: my weekend
how is it that just driving into a place can make me feel 100 times better? that was completely the feeling i got yesterday as i drove over the border into North Carolina from Tennessee knowing that my destination was only 20 miles away (as the crow flies). it's so damn amazing- i almost wasn't sick anymore and i certainly wasn't depressed anymore (it had been slowly stealing over me since last saturday night and was becoming almost unbearable).
~of course i'm back here again and it's back, but i'm trying not to think about it~
i have two favorite places in my life (well three if we're talking figurative) but some of my most unfavorite people know where one of them is (and are intimately familiar with it, unfortunately) so that particular place doesn't seem so special anymore. brookfield park.
the second place is just in the smoky mountains of north carolina. specifically this little motel called the stony creek motel (it's by a stony creek.. ha. ha.) there's no way i'd ever take someone there unless i knew they'd stay important to me for a while, because i refuse to have the type of desecration that occurred before (i.e. Brookfield park). i gotta be able to have some place to run to when i need too; i'm currently running out of places.
so i left radford around 12 and got there around 3:30 coinciding with this utter feeling of sublime. it didn't even matter that gas was horrendously expensive or that i was hungry or that my dad wasn't there yet so i couldn't check into the hotel. first thing i did was explore the road between maggie valley and cherokee, which i'd never done on my own. it's so much better when you can do things for yourself- at your pace with badly misshapen u-turns, and definitely some spraying of gravel in the rush to get back on and up the road before the next car comes around the turn. i came to the realization that your parents can take you anywhere at an young age and you have no control over what happens there. you can like it or cannot and complain all the time. i've been a lot of places in the world, but i can definitely appreciate the places where i went on my own- losing my parents or the chaperones. i think it takes an equally mature point of view to realize that having other people doing touristy stuff with you is also fun, as long as you or they aren't annoying. that need to have a delicate balance i suppose.
so saturday afternoon was for me and me alone. i trespassed on fake park property, tried to climb down to a waterfall, spastically looked for scenic places and turnoffs, and had been to and from cherokee twice before i went back to the hotel to find out that Dad and Ian had checked in at some point during my mountain trek.
from there we all went to target to buy jocelyn more baby things because they're visiting her and aunt mary on monday. hand delivery is so much cheaper than the post office! ;-) that took a good while b/c as usual target is woefully unprepared for my father's shopping skills (more winks and giggles). after that we ate at subway b/c my brother is a fast food restaurant conniseur and refuses to eat real food. we got home watched the emperor's new groove (which is still damn good) and everyone quickly fell fast asleep.
except me who didn't really sleep at all and if she did could most quickly count about 3 hours at the most. it's a mystery because last time we stayed there, i slept like a rock...a very peaceful one at that.
although it did help me to be awake at like 8 in the morning so we got an early start on the day. oh my god, what a fantastic day. we played putt putt (which is a family tradition) and went on a 15 minute helicopter ride which left me breathless and really unable to describe it except for this: "::hiccups:: really really really really high!" after that, dad went to go find roads to test the 4wheel drive on, but for some place that's supposedly hillybilly there are no abandoned roads anywhere! just guard dogs on ones that appear to go somewhere. it felt like a complete failure in that department, although dad did do this backing up trick on a winding road for about 1/2 or the back down the almost 90 degree hill.
~which reminds me that i can't wait to get to camp jeep and hop in the driver's seat!!~
finally we found this waterfall that you're supposed to be able to hike too and then we explored an old mill.
i hope my pictures come out (i'm putting them in at CVS tomorrow) as well as the one's dad took of me, so i have something to show people when they want to know what i look like (and aren't smart enough to come look at me in person ;-) )
i fell like this entry has been extremely upbeat, so i kinda want to keep it that way. let me say though, goodbyes are completely to awkward for me to attempt them anymore.
~raven
