Friday
by Rob

Today was movie day.

Actually, there was almost no time spent at the beach. The pool got treated this morning, so it was off limits until after 10:00 AM. By that time, everyone had planned the afternoon -- movies.

Kinsey, Abbie, Katie, Chloe, Barb and Kim went to see Kit Kitterege.

Garrett and Michael saw The Journey to the Center of the Earth, in 3D.

Rick, Dad, Rob and Nate went to see Get Smart.

...and on Thursday...
by Rob

Thursday was consistent with the rest of our vacation so far. The weather continues to be hot and mostly sunny. It seems that there was less time spent in the ocean yesterday; however, the pool still got a lot of use. In the afternoon, there were outings. The girl cousins headed out to shopping. The boy cousins played nine holes of golf at one of Uncle Rick's courses. Later in the afternoon, Michael, Debbie and Barb hit the outlet stores.

I can't say much about the shopping outings, although Abbie tried to freak me out when she came home wearing magnetic earrings that she tried to pass off as piercings. I couldn't quite believe that she had the fearlessness to defy us and get her ears pierced, but for a brief moment I was panicked by the thought that she might actually have that much nerve.

The golf outing was great. Both Michael and I went along with Rick to help the boys, and see the course and it's surroundings. Garrett's obviously been at this awhile and it was fun to watch him. He took coaching from Uncle Rick and his dad well, and would also use some of his own devices like laying his club on the ground and pointing it in the direction of his shot before placing his feet. Every so often when his shot was particularly strong or well placed, he would give his dad a high-five.

Nate also handled things well. He appreciated the coaching that he received from Uncle Rick and Uncle Mike. So did I. If he was successful at employing the input he was getting, he would comment about it after the shot, "Now I get it." Even though he took a lot of shots, he seemed to understand that this was a great opportunity to learn some things and a very nice place to be golfing. At one point, as we were driving between holes he said to me, "So Uncle Rick gets paid to do this. That's so cool. I want to do this."

The course and the resort are clearly more high-end than anything that I have experienced before. It was great to see where Rick is working, but even more so, enjoyable to see his interactions with the staff and golfers at the course. Obviously, they all know who he is, but they also clearly respect him. I was impressed by his manner of greeting and interacting with all of the people that we encountered.

After dinner, Rick's meal of barbecued chicken, most of us played "Apples to Apples." The game was loud and funny. It was especially fun to watch Garrett. He laughed and chattered through the whole event. We also decided that he had a devious, yet brilliant strategy for playing the game. After the red cards were announced, he would often remark about one of them in a way that led us all to assume that it was his card. He did this three times about someone else's card, before we all started to suspect that he was intentionally playing us. Intended or not, it seemed like a brilliant way to throw off the judge.

Rick seemed to get the best assortment of ironic or humorous cards. I seem to remember that he had Bill Clinton, Democrats, and George W. Bush. He, of course, was very clever in his choice of adjectives that he associated with each of those cards. It was so funny at times, that there was little hope of concealing which card he had played.

Happy. Birthday.

by Rob

Life at the beach has found its stride. The weather is cooperating nicely, hot and mostly sunny; the clouds have been big and full, but not concentrated enough to make things overcast. Between the ocean and the pool, it's been possible to stay outside for extended periods of time without getting overheated or bored.

Yesterday day was Abbie's 11th birthday. I think that she realized that this is not a common way to spend your birthday. She got it and she appreciated it. She was happy and busy all day. She didn't swim or play outside quite as much as the first couple of days, but she didn't seem to have any trouble spending her time. For awhile, she and Kim watched a movie on our bed together. They watched 27 Dresses, a chick-flick as Abbie would tell you. She seems to get the idea and she's quite happy to choose her movies from that genre.

After dinner last night was the photo shoot. We all dressed in khaki and pastels and headed down to the sand with the photographer and his wife. After the pictures, we had cake (chocolate with chocolate frosting) and ice cream, and then she opened presents. It was a lot of fun.

The day ended with a late evening swim. It was Katie and Rob verses Abbie, Kinsey, Garrett and Nate at "keep-away." Four young cousins can be an overwhelming force when they all wrap their little bodies all over their target, in this case, Katie. But Katie didn't give them any breaks and the game was rowdy, physical, and a lot of fun. When we emerged from the pool at about 10:00, there was no arguing from anyone. It wasn't much harder to get them all to head to bed.

This morning is another sunny and warm one. I am not aware of any plans for the day, but it looks like the weather will allow us to spend our time here, wandering between food, swimming, reading and talking. It's enough for all of us.

Life's a Beach

By Rob

Day one in Florida has been pretty darn sweet. The weather was hot and sunny. The ocean is warm and gentle. The algae problem even seemed to have moved from our beachfront area to the a few other houses down the beach.

Because of the time zone issue (it's Central here), most of us are a little baffled by what time it feels like, as compared to what time it really is. Regardless of how you view it, we started early and we're ending late; we just got the kids out of the pool for the evening. Garrett gets the "Energizer-Bunny-of-the-Day Award." He's amazing. He swam pretty much all day long. He was just sent to bed, and I'll bet he's already asleep.

We have no plans to do anything differently tomorrow. In the evening, some of us may head to the dog track. Other than that, it's the beach, the pool, the sun and more snack food than we could possibly consume in a week.

Life is good at the beach.

Nashville Now

by Rob

It shouldn't surprise me that things are different than I imagined or remember.

Despite my earlier prediction regarding our day, we decided pretty quickly to head for the Adventure Science Center. We had heard about it from someone at Eric and Miriam's wedding. Based on the fliers and information that we had to work with, it was clearly the kid's first pick. Kim and I would have preferred to go to The Hermitage, Andrew Jackson's homestead, but ultimately the desire to keep them happy was stronger than our desire to do the "school field trip" thing, as they deemed it.

Turns out, this was a good choice, although the 30 or more minutes that we stood in line waiting to pay the admission price was a bit frustrating. This was especially hard for me, since we were about sixth or seventh in line, and behind us the line disappeared out the door and out of sight. I tried to remember to "set the tone" by being patient and cool about it, but it was work. Once inside, we were quickly drawn into the plethora of hands on exhibits. Some of the activities and displays were about basic scientific matters like physics, light, and sound. Other areas were dedicated to the human body and space. The kids were able to explore the place on their own. Occasionally we lost track of one or both of them, but never for very long.

The science center has a view of downtown Nashville. I took this picture there. I don't really know what I was expecting, but the skyline is more substantial than I guessed that it would be. I know that it's been over 20 years since I've been here -- things have changed and my memories have faded -- but it just doesn't look like I thought it would.

We decided to leave the museum at lunchtime. Our plan was to head to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. In all honesty, I felt like we should do something related to country music while we're here, but I didn't figure that I'd be very impressed by this museum. I was wrong. Opened in 2001, the museum is modern and well designed. We were all content to take our time, reading information and looking at items throughout the two floors of displays. I was surprised by how familiar I am with some of the key people from the history of country music. It was fun to see Buck Owen's red, white and blue guitar; I remember it from Hee Haw. One of the displays includes the back drop and the corn field from the show. When we looked at the walls of gold and platinum albums, I was surprised to see that I recognized a lot of them from when I was growing up.

I also especially enjoyed the special exhibition about Hank Williams. I didn't know anything about him until a couple of years ago. One of my favorite Christian artists, David Crowder, recorded a bluegrass version of "I Saw the Light." At the time that his recording was being released, Crowder did some interviews about Hank Williams and the importance of his influence on a wide range of musicians. Williams sure was a mess, but the designers of this exhibition didn't sugar coat anything.

Before leaving, we hit the gift shop, of course. Nate bought a straw cowboy hat. His souvenir of choice for this visit.


We left the museum after about 3 hours. We decided to head into the "SoBro" neighborhood nearby. We had seen a strip of neon sign covered businesses just a few blocks from the museum. We didn't know if it was authentic or tourist driven, but it looked like a classic section of downtown Nashville. After walking half of the way to our destination, I was surprised to look up and see the Ryman Auditorium. I remember that when we visited there when I was a kid, it seemed as though we had driven to an out-of-the-way location to find it. That's certainly not the case now. It's directly across the street from the Nashville Convention Center, and just around the corner from the block of activity that we were heading to.

Kim and the kids didn't take a lot of interest in the stores, but Abbie was also hoping to buy a cowboy hat and within a few minutes they found an interesting shop that sold them. I waited outside with Elvis while they looked inside. Within ten minutes they came out, Abbie now sporting a white, flannel hat.

We walked back to our car by a different route and came upon the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. I had heard about this facility sometime in the last year or so. The trend for major city symphonies to abandon larger performing art centers for smaller, acoustically brilliant concert halls reminds me of the way that baseball stadiums have been changing. I would love to attend a performance at this venue. I am amazed at the architecture and the fact that the building opened less than 2 years ago. I think that the classic, 19th century appearance of the building is wonderful. Kim and the kids decided that anyone who lives on Schermerhorn Road ought to be able to see something in the hall for free. The fact that we're leaving and there's no performance there this evening, means that there won't be anymore speculation about that.

We're back at the hotel for the night. The day was great, but after walking for most of it, no one seems interested in doing much this evening. The kids haven't even mentioned the pool; instead, they're parked in front of the Disney channel, which we don't get at home. They're as happy as can be. Tomorrow we head to "Hot-lanta." We'll spend a couple of days with Barbie before making the final leg of our southbound route. We'll be in Florida from Sunday to Sunday.

I'm not sorry that our schedule led us to spend some time here. The kids really seem to be appreciating this time, and they've already asked about coming back. They think that we could use some more time to explore. I think that's good; as we leave, we'll leave them wanting more.

An Hour Off
by Rob

This morning we're waking up in the Central Time Zone. It's a first for the kids, and I'm guessing that it's been over 20 years since the last time I did so. Our trip to Nashville, yesterday, was like the rest of our travel so far, smooth and uneventful.

We're not really sure what we'll do today. I made an attempt to research things before we started this trip, but time didn't allow for much. The kids didn't get interested in figuring things out in advance. So it may become one of those days when we will spend more time trying to decide what we will do than actually doing anything. It's not my favorite way to spend the day, but hey, we're together and there's always the pool.

Last evening, we decided to get dinner at the Opryland Hotel. I knew that it was larger now than when I was there as a kid, but I didn't figure on quite as much expansion. If I had to guess, I'd say that the indoor gardens are about 5 or 6 times larger than before. There are so many rooms that I can hardly figure out how they can fill them. Since I researched staying there before we started the trip (and it was WAY too expensive), the fact that there are so many people staying there is an even greater mystery to me. Still, Kim and the kids were amazed by it. Despite the fact that our pub-style dinner was also very expensive, we had a enjoyable evening there and walked through most of the gardens. I don't remember if Dad had to pay to park our car when he took us there years ago, but they get visitors that way now. $16.00 for the day. "Welcome to Nashville. Will that be cash or credit?"

Our departure from the Koenig's was bitter-sweet. It was wonderful to see them and spend time talking with them. Their house is a fun place to be, because they're fun people. But as we were leaving, things got teary. It seems to me that so many moves in so many years has gotten more difficult, not easier. I know that they are making inroads where they are, but they are missing a great deal of what they had in New York, and Australia, and Washington, and... (the list goes on). I hope that this won't be our last visit with them, but it's sure hard to say.

Well, the kids are getting up and the hotel breakfast area closes in 28 minutes, so I'm off to attack the day.

Morning
by Rob

Today we’re waking up in Indiana. We’re at the home of our friends, Lyn, Phil, Olivia and Grant. They moved here from Schenectady last July. Phil says that this will be his last stop before retiring from the Army, which will be either next spring or the following spring.

Our trip yesterday from Grand Rapids was uneventful enough to seem pleasant. No delays. Little traffic. Nice weather. A descent lunch spot at the right time. Little arguing in the back seat.

This is no shock to other people I’m sure, but it’s flat here. I have been in the rolling whatever of upstate New York for so long, that I’m sort of awestruck by how flat it is here. From the Koenig’s house, you can see for several miles in every direction. Phil stood in the yard with me last evening and pointed out farms, business locations, and other things off in the distance.

After dinner last evening, Kim and I talked with Lyn for awhile. Phil and Grant went to a Boy Scouts meeting and Olivia went to work. It was so pleasant, really windy at first, but bright, warm and bug free. We sat on the porch long after we finished eating and just chatted about life in Indiana. When the others came home it was after 9:00. There was still plenty of light, but the wind had completely died and the sky was cloudless. Within a few minutes, Phil had lit a campfire, and the boys were playing with fire crackers and running around in the yard. As the light faded and the fireflies came out, their play expanded beyond the yard into the surrounding fields of beans that border their property on three sides. In the west there was a beautiful glow of red and pink, while in the other direction, off in the distance, we could hear the sounds of the kids running and laughing in the fields. When I looked at my watch, I was surprised to see that it was just a few minutes before 10:00.

For the first time that I can remember in months, I was able to recognize the feeling of being relaxed and completely free of thoughts about duties and tasks. I felt joy, listening to the kids laughing and yelling, knowing that they were creating a memory that they’ll have for a very long time.

When I started to wake this morning, the light was beginning to creep into our room. Kim and I are staying in a room that faces east, towards the back of their lot. I briefly considered getting up to watch the sun rise, but fell back to sleep pretty quickly. When I got up at 7:00, it looked like the middle of the day, bright sunshine and clear sky.

Other than coffee, breakfast, and showering, my morning has been about visiting with Phil and Olivia and just being here. The boys just got up, but Abbie’s still in bed. That’s fine. Kim and I just talked about it and agreed, we don’t want to do anything today that requires planning or scheduling. It was a conversation that lasted about 7 seconds.

Finally, this morning, I feel like summer is here. I feel like I'm here too.