Untold Story #9: Lions Narnia Braille Trail

At some point, I came across and saved The Complete Listing of All Public Children's Literature Statues in the United States; then, at some later point, I noticed that there are statues from C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in Kingsport, Tennessee. The statues, as it turns out, are on what's called the Lions Narnia Braille Trail, which is part of a Boundless Playground (for children of all physical and mental abilities) in Warriors' Path State Park. We'd never been to Warriors' Path.

Typically, we celebrate Charleigh's birthday at Jellystone in Natural Bridge or Luray, but I talked Jim into camping at Warriors' Path, this year. We had to drive a bit further, but staying in a tent in Warrior's Path is about ten times less expensive than staying in a cabin in Jellystone. Also, the Warriors' Path location was much more convenient for my parents, who camped beside us in their little, homemade camper.

All of us enjoyed the campground; in fact, I know my dad's planning to return. (I think to fish?) I'd called to make reservations (as opposed to making them online) and gotten excellent recommendations regarding our campsites, which were beside bathrooms and a playground. The kids ran amok (under our relatively watchful eyes) and made lots of friends.

The Narnia trail was my favorite thing about Warriors' Path, as I knew it would be. Each of the eight sensory stations tells a part of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe not only in braille, but also by recording.

I didn't edit this photo because it makes me laugh.
 I wonder how many times I've been the photographer in the background?

While in Kingsport, we also bought hot dogs from the original Pal's and visited the Kingsport Carousel, which had opened just a little over a year before and includes all hand-carved animals. It was a great trip, overall; I recommend it highly.

Untold Story #1: The Lost Sea

The little kids and I vacationed in Tennessee, last month, and the day before we left to head home, we took a trip to The Lost Sea in Sweetwater. I'd lived in Tennessee from sixth grade until graduating from college, but I'd never been to The Lost Sea, and neither had the little kids or my nephew Boone, who played hooky from school to go with us.

Well, technically, Boone played hooky to go to Santa's Land with us, but for several reasons, I changed my mind at the last minute so that, the morning of the trip, I was texting my brother: "FYI, we're heading to Sweetwater instead of Cherokee." No regrets on this, although The Lost Sea was different than I'd expected.

I'd been expecting something straight out of Peter Pan...something, you know, like this:

source: basementrejects.com

With a glass bottom in the boat. And lots of magical things to see all around, while in the boat.

I don't know how I'd expected to get to the boat, but somehow I'd missed the walking-a-pretty-good-distance-through-a-cave factor; thus, everyone but Boone was wearing inappropriate shoes. I think it's humorous, to be honest, that my sister-in-law had no earthly idea that we'd remain in Tennessee (as opposed to heading to North Carolina), let alone that we'd be hiking in a cave; yet, she still managed to outfit her child better than my kids. This says a lot about the kind of mom I am.

The good news is that--while Charleigh took one good tumble, and Chip got rocks in his sandals something like five times--we all survived to tell the tale.

The Lost Sea was the fourth cave I can recall visiting, and I thought it similar to Luray Caverns and Shenandoah Caverns, Luray being by far the most impressive of the three. (I think Mammoth Cave very different from the others: vaster-feeling and less Disney-World magical.) The Lost Sea has a pretty interesting history; you can read some it here. One tour guide did mention that there was a bar (Tavern in the Cavern, or some such) down there at one point, but it only lasted two months. He said alcohol doesn't affect people the same way in the cave; therefore, they would drink too much and fall down the steps or crash their cars upon leaving.

Anthodites, or Cave Flowers

Of course, the sea part of The Lost Sea sets it apart from the other caves I'd visited. It's more of a lake than a canal (as I had imagined) or a sea (as its name suggests). There are some huge rainbow trout in it, but I saw those off the side of the boat, not through the boat; the glass part runs skinny as a 2x4 along the middle of the boat's bottom, and our panel was really muddy. Our tour guide said the lake is really deep; yet, there was no mention of life jackets. Bizarre, but like I said: we all survived to tell the tale.

If I remember correctly, our tour guide also said that, while the trout aren't blind, they don't procreate in The Lost Sea. The people who run the cave leave lights on for them, feed them, and scoop them out of the lake once they die. What a strange, unnatural existence; right?

After leaving the cave, we took a little hike through the woods. The kids were walking just ahead of me on the trail, and Boone had Chip by the hand. There was a bit of a drop-off on Chip's side, at one point, and Boone said: "I'd feel better about this if I were on the falling side." Then they switched places. I'm just crazy about Boone; he's an unusually thoughtful person.

After our hike, we hit the buffet at Donna's Old Town Cafe in Madisonville, which met everyone's approval. Several folks commented on the excellent behavior of my little kids, who were, in fact, exceedingly well-behaved. I smiled and said: "Thank you," but I knew the truth: my little kids were exhausted from hiking through a cave and the woods in inappropriate footwear. Even Boone took a nap on the drive back to my parents'. It was a most excellent adventure.

Belated 9th Anniversary Post

"Come to Hatteras," they said, and I didn't want to go with you. It had gone bad between us, again. Nine years married, and there's been more bad than good, more hard than easy. We are weary.

I worry about what our children have learned about marriage. We have taught them all we know about it, but our understanding is a bag with holes. We've prayed, read articles and books, watched videos, met with a counselor; yet, we can't seem to get it together.

I've been an excellent learner all my life, but I can't seem to learn this: can't seem to break our painful cycles that are, in many ways, similar to the ones I witnessed, growing up. Sometimes, I'm tempted to blame my parents; other times, I'm tempted to blame yours. I've asked you to imagine throwing my daddy and yours into a sack and shaking it; what would be the outcome? Not good, and I'm not always sure who is who in this scenario; regardless, the truth is that we're the adults (the ones influencing children), now, and aren't we responsible for the choices we make?

It doesn't feel like it; I know. Our behaviors feel innate, primal, beyond the capacity of our excellent brains and kind, Jesus-loving hearts. I live with the fear that, down the pike, our children--our daughters, especially--will choose this: not because it's happy or healthy or normal, but because it's familiar.

We long for respite. We found it, for a few days, in Hatteras. With lights and nets, one night we walked to the sea to hunt ghost crabs.

I'd never hunted ghost crabs, before, and in truth participated this time only through the lens of my old camera, a T3i, which has limited ISO capabilities. It has a flash, but I wanted to see what I could get with ambient lighting. The resulting photos are blurry, but I love them; I think they capture both my wild excitement and my disorientation.

 

They also capture Charleigh's trepidation.

I took many beautiful photos while we were in Hatteras, but these are the ones I've studied over and over. I haven't been able to stop thinking about that night: the dark air so thick with salt that, licking my lips, I could taste it; the beams of the flashlights and lanterns; Charleigh's eyes, wide with concern; the delighted laughter of the other children and shouts of the adults ("We've got one; bring the bucket!"); the surf's occasional lap at my flip-flop-clad feet. Again and again, I have played the movie of this--the ghost-crab hunt--in my mind, until I could not doubt that there was something more I was supposed to see in it, write about it.

So I did the thing I do, sometimes, in which I force my spirit open like a pistachio nut left in the bottom of the bag: one of those we pick out and toss back in because it has an ungenerous gap, because it must be either pried open with something other than our fingers or cracked with a snap between our teeth.

After days and days, this is what I found.

Hunting ghost crabs is a perfect analogy for our marriage. We are haunted people. We are together but alone. We each carry a little light and benefit from the (little) light of others; still, we are severely limited in what we can see. It's dark, here. There are ghosts, here, but good on us if we're committed to capturing them: to seeing and accepting them for what they are and, ultimately, to setting them free.

Your beams illuminate my ghosts; my beams illuminate yours. Our power in one another's life is this and only this: illumination. Not eradication. Eradication is deeply personal. We have long been distracted by one another's ghosts. If there is to be peace and progress, each of us must commit to dealing with his or her own ghosts, also to giving the other space and time to do the same.

May we stumble ever closer to a better and brighter place; may we find one another there. This is nine years married. Hear me when I say: I love you, still.

5 Reasons to Love Roanoke

I think I can safely say that I've driven past Roanoke for more than half my life: all the years I traveled from East Tennessee up to Pennsylvania/Maryland to visit family, all the years I've traveled from Virginia down to Tennessee to visit family. I guess I tend to be in a hurry to get to my people, though, because I'd never explored Roanoke until this summer.

A few weeks ago, at the end of Boone Week, we had to meet my parents in Christiansburg (very near Roanoke), and I talked Jim into a hotel room; the Science Museum of Western Virginia in Roanoke is on our ASTC Passport list, and we'd never been. Then I did my thing and researched the area to figure out what other things we should see while in the area.

Dude. I fell in love with Roanoke so hard that I'm still kind of grieving that I'd never spent time there, before.

Reasons I've found (so far) to love Roanoke:

1) The Roanoke Star (or Mill Mountain Star). According to its sign, it's the world's largest, man-made star at a height of 88.5 feet and weight of 10,000 lbs. And I'm not a landscape photographer by any means, but the overlook is gorgeous.

2) Black Dog Salvage. Jim had watched the tv show; I hadn't. This place is amazing: just so much of...everything. What do you need? A door, a sink, a sign, a knob? A mannequin? A chair to suspend from the ceiling? (I've always wanted one of those, actually.) Check out Black Dog Salvage. Everything's for sale, they say, except the dog.

3) Texas Tavern. Because I'm not gonna lie: I love a cheap hotdog. Especially in an 85-year-old restaurant that's open around the clock and seats only ten people at a time. The man who served us interacted beautifully with the kids--reminded me of Boone's Papaw Rob, actually--and won my heart right way. Having studied up on Texas Tavern's lingo ahead of time, I ordered my hotdog "with." It was outstanding. Jim ordered a burger and was clearly jealous of my hotdog. After eight years of wishing he'd ordered what I ordered, you'd think he'd get a clue. But, no. Bless his heart. Love him so much.

4) Random Kitsch and Tack.

Miniature Graceland. It's seen better days but has an interesting story.

5) The Science Museum of Western Virginia. There's so much to see and do there! The traveling exhibit while we were there was on dinosaurs and fossils. My photos from the Healthy Bodies Gallery aren't so cute, but I was particularly fascinated by the real, human organs on display.

The museum is located in Market Square, which is a building in the center of the most happening part of town. I loved Roanoke; can you tell? We'll be back!