As a kid, my family would occasionally travel to Hilton Head Island, S.C. for a week's long summer vacation. The annual commute in the Ford Aerostar minivan would take about 12-14 hours each way. In my parents' great wisdom, they decided to break these road trips into two days. The first day would consist of packing our bags
(and the various plastic bags of food), finding a way to somewhat organize our week's worth of clothes (my brother and I just needed a tank-top and swimming trunks since that is all we would wear for the week), and heading on first leg of the drive. Typically, the minivan comfortably fit 6 people, but the coolers, luggage, and food bags constructed the Aerostar into an obstacle course. Between my family and my sister's friend, we occupied every square inch of that vehicle. Every restroom break or any movement would result into squished sandwiches or, in my case, squishing my brother's face into his car seat. My dad always drove, who has adult ADD, so he would constantly be fidgety and was seemingly trying to remember which pedals were the brakes or the gas. Hard braking and quickly accelerating followed by a game of pingponging the minivan between the lane divider would certainly cause some fuss from everyone. My dad would make an excuse for every jerky movement. Since we were driving through towns, radio signals were not the
strongest, and no one could seem to agree which genre of music to listen to. My dad loves jazz and soft rock, my sister enjoyed pop and rock, my mom would try to mediate a balance by flipping through the stations, and I could've cared less and found my source of entertainment by annoying my little brother. As a temperamental child, I knew (and still know) the buttons to push to denote him. Then, I would sit back and enjoy his tantrum while my mom tried to keep some semblance of peace and order in our mobile sardine can.
Inevitably, this entertaining routine would repeat itself every trip and last for the first few hours. My sister would have her mix-tape in a Walkman, but she still insisted on listening to radio when necessary. While my dad sat in the cockpit, he was guided by my mom's "crooked finger" - the GPS-pointer. She would read the AAA trip-tick and
navigate the twists and turns for my dad to take. Occasionally he would veer off the wrong exit since he saw my mom's finger pointing one-direction (or so he would say), even though the directions called for the other way. The crooked finger certainly extended our travel time. These detours would tack an hour or two onto the trip. By the end of the day, we were spent, mentally exhausted, and hungry for a meal. Alas, we would reach the half-way point in Whiteville, WV (or maybe it was Wytheville, I'm not sure exactly the small mountain town that we would stay). We'd wait about 45 minutes for my mom to check us into the Knight's Inn motel. I knew nothing about hotel/motel accommodations, especially since this would be the only time in my childhood that I would stay at a motel resort! In today's standards, the motel would be a 1.5 star at best, but that was okay. We were all tired and exhausted, so sleep would overrule any expectations - even if it meant that we
would all sleep in the same economy studio fit with two beds. Just like the minivan, we'd occupy every inch of floor in that tiny room with 6 people!
Morning quickly approached. We'd wake-up and cross the luxurious gravel parking lot to the Cracker Barrel for breakfast before the second day adventure. Since we would arrive after the sunset, the mountains were dark. In the morning, fog hung through the green forest of the rolling mountainside. I would see fog (or smog) in
Cleveland, but the Knight's Inn seemed to have transformed into some castle in the clouds. The scenery was always a treat - pure beauty..."almost Heaven" remember we are in West Virginia. The point of this story: I woke up this past Tuesday to a similar scene of heavy fog blanketing the hillside around campus. The sun's rays
fighting to make itself known through the thick mist. The nostalgia quickly dissipated, unlike the fog, when I learned the smoke from the Canadian wild fires struck again. The haze was worse than it had been in earlier June. Visibility was about 50 yards, if that. The air smelled "off" or chemically.
Regardless of the warnings, which I had not seen the news, I played hours of pickleball. It had rained for about two days this week, then was quite cloudy. The haze hid the sunlight, but many of us were geared to play. And, we did. I'll probably have some health/lung issues later from this past week, but time quickly passed by.
On Saturday, I was blessed to have a visit from two of my closest friends from junior high and high school: Andy and Marty. Prior to the visit, these two hooligans had been on my Presentencing Report (PSI), which means they were approved to visit. They had to complete the background check information, but it was just a technicality. Days leading to the visit, I had communicated with my dear friend, Andy. He kept saying that he and "Mary" would be arriving on-time and confirming the visit. I finally had to ask why he kept misspelling Marty's name and leaving
out the "t". He wrote back, "it was his nickname." This gave me a literal laugh-out-loud moment when I realize he meant the name Cherry Merry Murphy. The nickname came from some commercial for a doll - cherry merry muffin. LOL, it had some jingle that we would sing to Marty. Whatever the fun we had with the name, it stuck all these years. Except, Andy thought it was "Mary" LOL. Needless to say, the visit went really well...and they vowed to return one day again soon. It was a great week, and I'm very blessed to have all the support and love from family and friends! Have a blessed and miraculous week 🙂