Hangin' out with the kids

"I feel like this dog most of the time" - Me

Duck

There are wild ponies that live on the beach here. It’s also called “duck”. We don’t see the ponies, or ducks, but we stay with Tess’ friend on the lake and the house is huge and white and has it’s own jetty. We can finally sleep with windows open and there is a breeze. We take the boat out for an hour, lounge around the pool and eat tacos at the pier watching men play a makeshift game on Kayaks with paddles as swords and trashcan lids as shields. All of the “shacks” here are triple storied and look expensive even though they’re made of wooden slats and haven’t been painted in years. Everything is white and washed out - the sand, the house, the scrubland…There is a lake on one side and the coast on the other.

Nashville

I am sick in Nashville. We stay out the back of a wedding chapel/B&B. The daughter sells vintage bags. We have our own rooms . There is so much 90s grunge music on the radio and we sing nirvana all night when we hit the town. The bars are cool. There is trivia and live music and we dance to an indie country band and make eyes at skinny. Poppit chases a firefly on the way home and it is the funniest thing I have ever seen.

Memphis

Everything is starting to blur together. I don’t remember the houses we’ve stayed in as well and can’t differentiate what was where. We drive into the Graceland hotel at 10pm and are stretching our limbs in the guitar shaped pool within half an hour. The water is as warm as the air. The next day is dedicated to Elvis. I say thank you as we pass his grave. Memphis is real music and my first taste of gumbo. The musicians in an outdoor pub on a wooden stage take a liking to us and we escape in the middle of a song whose lyrics they cant change. Escape to the Peabody hotel where we watch the duck march and sleep in prestige. We sit with the children to watch the ducks and I watch the runaways in the hotel room drinking champagne. Bath, hotel, ducks, champagne, inspiration, rock n roll.

Roadtrippin'

R's driving makes me feel like a fish in a bag of water in the back seat. We are all doing well considering we are starting to grate on one other. I refrain myself from screaming across the roadside diner table at one of my friends “STOP CHEWING LIKE A HORSE” and hope to god that one day her mother will tell her. I'm not easy to live with.
The scenery is lush and green and forest-y. We eat candy and laugh and listen to 90s music and sing our hearts out. We always get a little hyperactive toward the end of the day’s drive while searching for a hotel. We managed to go off course in Pennsylvania around Amish country and ended up driving down lovely lanes around beautiful countryside, fields and national parks as the sun was going down.
On a whim we added in the field where they held Woodstock into our itinerary. On our way we drove through picturesque forests listening to The Who and Janis Joplin, all wearing crochet (it was lame and we loved it) – sun filtered through the open windows and with wind in our hair we passed creeks and lakes with people swimming, tiny charming hillside mountain towns. We also passed a field in the middle of acres of woodland, with trees cut down and abandoned bulldozers. On the biggest one was hanging a huge American flag. Further down the lane, a giant stiletto, like the one from Priscilla, on top of a shed. Americana is so wonderful.