Path to the dock
Deer River
Ronda (Kaykay) was to meet Barb and I in a blue Buick at the curb at the terminal. Since neither Barb nor I had any checked luggage, we had agreed to meet around 3:00 p.m.
3:00 p.m. came and went and no sign of Ronda.
The weather was hot and sunny, but not anywhere near as hot as I had thought it would be because it had been so hot at home in Massachusetts!
3:30 p.m. came and went and no sign of Ronda.
Ronda had not wanted to drive to the airport so she had asked a friend, Karen, to drive. I had told Ronda I would be wearing a T-shirt with my name, Susan, embroidered on it along with an embroidered breast cancer ribbon.
4:00 p.m. came and went and no sign of Ronda.
Barb went to phone Ronda's sister, Gail (Wildhair) as I had to stand on the curb with my name on my shirt facing the traffic.
"Ronda ran into some heavy traffic, she should be there soon," said Gail.
4:30 p.m. came and went and no sign of Ronda.
4:45 out of the terminal darted a small figure with hugs for Barb and I. Ronda and Karen had been waiting for us at the departure building! Guess down south they don't know if they're coming or going!
Barb and I piled into the blue, non-Buick (!) car and off we went.
Roads are roads, but there is one junction in Georgia that even Californians would be proud of. Spaghetti junction is just that, spaghetti! Looks like it just came off a Dr. Seuss page!
We met Gail and off we went through fields and forests covered with Kudzu. Kudzu was imported to Georgia to help with erosion. From the looks of it, there is no more erosion! But there is also nothing else either as it is strangling trees and covering fields.
We arrived in the town of Helen. Helen was started with a dream. A person had fallen in love with the look of small German towns during the war and had wanted to have the look in Georgia. He convinced others of the tourist possibilities and so Helen became more than a few ramshackeled buildings.
Alpine Realty gave us directions to the lodge. It was obvious that the woman at the desk was dislexic. She said to take a left as she waved her right arm and she obviously had not been to the lodge as she could not answer me when I asked, "So when we pull out of the parking lot we go this (pointing to the right) way?"
We followed the map, but as Chris had found out earlier, streets were named wrong and one left was omitted! The lodge supposedly at the end of the street but I saw the "obvious" sign to it (a 5" x 5" plaque almost on the ground) way before the end of the street.
We had not been given any keys but a window was not locked so Ronda crawled through it and let us in.
The lodge was beautiful. Spacious rooms. Nicely furnished. Quilts on the walls. Books on nightstands. Microwave in the kitchen. Southern white pine wide plank board walls and floors. A large screened back porch and a delightful dock on the river.
Deer River
There was much hugging when they came back!
The evening was spent trying to see a 3-D picture
and figuring out the phone so that we all could call Tammie. Dialing 0 did not get you an operator and one could only dial 800 numbers!
Ronda tossed her quilt on the couch for us all to see. It was so nice to see it again, like and old friend. Barb and her square got together again!
Saturday morning Chris gave me a gift of opera books and she and her mother, Joan, and I went for a walk. We all were winded just walking up the very steep and long driveway! I picked a few grasses and we enjoyed the morning coolness while we listened to the birds and watched for deer.
At lunch Gail, Chris, Joan, Barb and I went to Helen to meet Tammie and Linda at an International Restaurant. We had a wonderful table that overhung the river and we could watch people floating down the river on brightly colored tubes.
Gail and Chris
Tammie and her mother Linda
We did get to meet Blue, who had valiantly protected Ronda from the paramedics and members of her family when she had her stroke!
We, of course, had to check out Tammie's computer and we now all will be able to picture Linda telling Tammie what to type as she reclines on Tammie's bed when they are in BCforum!
Back at the lodge we all had another go around with the 3-D picture. Ronda squinted and moved her head back and forth trying to see it!
Sunday afternoon, Joan and Chris left to visit a friend of Joan's. It seemed as if Joan has lived or knew someone nearly everywhere! She knew a florist in Ronda's town, had an ex-boyfriend near Tammie and Linda's town, had a son near my state, had lived in Barb's area of Illinois...
Tammie and Linda were to show at 2:00 and we waited and waited.
When they still had not shown up at 5:00 Gail and I went to Helen to get some grits and fudge that I wanted to take back home.
On the way we stopped to get some boiled peanuts, a southern delicacy.
Boiled peanuts are just that, peanuts that are boiled. People boil them in large vats over an open wood fire.
We stopped at the "Peanut Man."
The "Peanut Man" was tall and lanky. He had on faded jeans and a t-shirt and ambled over as we hopped out of the car. He opened the boiling pot, scooped out a ladle of soggy shelled peanuts and put them in a plastic bag.
"Thanks," I said with my non-Southern accent.
"Ever had a boiled peanut?" he asked with an amused glint in his eye.
He scooped out a few peanuts, picked out a couple and handed me one.
I peeled off the water laden shell and popped the peanut in my mouth.
Salt! It tasted like salt with a little bean flavoring!
When we got back to the lodge Ronda ate a whole bunch of them while all I could still taste was salt!
We looked for the 3-D picture and Ronda saw it!
We all met for dinner in Helen, the first time all the members of Bcforum had actually been together! Barb, Chris, Gail, Linda, Ronda, Susan, Tammie and honorary member, Joan.
We opened up the "rainbow seeds" that Willow had sent for us to share and I gave everyone a BuddyBear. Rainbow seeds are bright golden glitter!
Susan, Barb, Gail, Ronda, Chris, Tammie, Linda (l-r)
In the morning we hugged Chris and Joan goodby and I drove Ronda's pick up truck with large oversized tires over the wrongly mapped streets and non existing left, past the "Peanut Man" and the jewels, past signs for Helen and Taccoa Falls, through fields and forests of kudzu, through Spaghetti Junction, past the post office where Gail works, right up to the departure door where KayKay had been waiting for Barb and I three days before.
On the plane the man in the seat next to mine offered to help put my carryon in the overhead rack.
"It's a bit heavy," I said.
"What do you have in here?" he asked as he struggled to lift up my 60 lbs of jewels, grits, opera books...
"Rainbow Seeds, pure Rainbow Seeds," I answered.
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