After three weeks of clear traveling weather, it was raining the morning we left Georgia. An excerpt from the “checking in” email I sent out that night:

We’re at the hotel in Vicksburg. We got rained on pretty much all day, from Georgia to Mississippi, in light sprinkles and steady showers and blinding downpours. It’s raining cats and dogs here tonight.

The hotel website said it had a heated indoor pool. It does indeed have an indoor pool, but “heated” is a gross exaggeration. I mean, there aren’t chunks of ice floating in it, but the word “heat” really doesn’t apply.

The kids were not deterred. There’s a pool, it has water in it, it must be swum.

So we swam. For about an hour. It was…invigorating.

And now we’re headed back to our room for hot showers and a good night’s sleep. There’s a complimentary breakfast in the morning here and then we’ll be off to DFW.

We set out the next morning for Aaron’s house. The weather cleared up somewhere in Texas, and we had perfect weather for the rest of the road trip.

I smiled as I passed this sign:

Casey’s heard really good things about that place. ;^)

General Observation: Texas has the best rest areas! Seriously. We stopped at a lot of rest areas between California and Georgia, and the TX ones never failed to impress me with their shiny well-groomed niceness. I like the tile mosaics most of them have on their restroom walls too, although this particular image puzzled me:

I can’t tell what it’s supposed to be. A giant oil rig inserted into the Dallas skyline? That’s my best guess.

Anyway.

We got to Aaron’s house the afternoon of Tuesday the 23rd, and settled in for a planned three-day stay. Wednesday afternoon Jera arrived, and that evening Aaron, his daughter Mandi, Jera, me, Luke and Elizabeth met up with Aron at an Italian restaurant called Carrabba’s for supper.

I can’t *believe* I forgot to get any pics of Jera or Aron. This is a sad, sad omission in my road trip scrapbook. But the supper couldn’t have been more fun; truly one of the highlights of the trip. I was astonished to realize later that we spent over two-and-a-half hours there at Carrabba’s–the time just flew by in lively chitchat and laughter. This was the first time I’d met Aron and Jera in person, I’m so glad we were finally able to do that! Very fun people.

And the kids were good and the food was wonderful. A perfect evening. :^)

Of course, the visit to Georgia wasn’t really about hiking or parks or Six Flags. I went to hang out with Dani because I missed our conversations, and the old simplicity of the early years of our friendship. Twenty years ago Dani befriended my awkward, prickly, socially inept eighteen-year-old self, and with that simple (and complicated) act of personal generosity I began to understand that there was so much more to life than what I’d seen of it so far. From Dani I got my first real glimpse of how people are supposed to treat one another. I already knew what kind of person I wanted to be, but Dani showed me how to start getting there. That’s not to say that we agreed about everything, because we certainly didn’t, but in a way that was a big part of the point: that people can hold wildly divergent points of view and still like and respect one another for who they are. That friends can disagree without being disagreeable, and without damaging their relationship. This was an extremely new concept for me at the time, but it’s been a marvelous blessing for me in the years since then, in all of my relationships.

So…fast forward. I now have a happy life, a happy marriage, happy kids. But a few months ago a vague sense of discontent started to creep in, and I didn’t know how to address it. When it got to the point where I was picking fights with Steve over meaningless crap, I knew something had do be done to fix things. But what?

Well, twenty years ago Dani helped me to get my ducks in a row. I figured maybe she could do it again. And if not, at least I’d get a nice change of scenery. ;^)

So I went to Georgia, and Dani and I spent two weeks talking about shoes and ships and sealing-wax and gardening and food and the true meaning of happiness. We agreed on some stuff and disagreed on a bunch of other stuff, just like the old days. We grokked that we’ve both changed a lot since we were teenagers (well, duh). And somewhere in there I found the fresh perspective that I was looking for. I realized that I’d been avoiding some issues in my life that really needed to be addressed, and stubbornly confronting some other issues that aren’t really worth my trouble at all. I realized how thankful I am for the good things in my world. Whatever it was that needed adjustment in my outlook got adjusted, and I (eventually) returned home with a new appreciation for my life and all its many blessings.

Good friends are a gift from God. I love you lots, Dani. :^)

On Sunday the 14th we all went to Six Flags Over Georgia! (Well, all but Jonathon. Poor boy was sick that day)

The place was dressed up for its annual Halloween Fright Fest, and was deliciously spooky.

Luke was unmoved by the fate of the campers at Crystal Lake…

…but Elizabeth had a run-in with Jason later…

…and various other shadowy creatures.

Of course, there were the regular theme park pleasures to be had:

There was one ride that was just plain odd. I can only describe it as a cross between Disneyland’s It’s A Small World ride and Maurice Sendak’s “Where The Wild Things Are.” Boat ride through monsterland. The kids loved it.

Toward the end of the day Mikhael and I slipped away from the kid-friendly stuff and braved the impossibly huge Goliath I’d love to incude a pic of this coaster, but it’s so ginormous that there’s literally no place you can stand to take a photo of the whole thing; you can only get bits and pieces of it in the frame. Goliath was an adrenaline rush of the highest order.

But if I ever go back there again I’m totally going to do THIS next time.

Six Flags Over Georgia gets three enthusiastic thumbs up from the Traveling Silkotches!

Once the kids and I had exhausted the immediate walking-range radius around Dani’s house, she suggested that we check out a nice local park for more hiking ops.

Turner Lake Park turned out to be exactly what we wanted: a playground…

…a pretty lake…

…and acres of hiking trails through scenic woods.

What a great park! We went back once more before we left GA, with Dani that time.

Speaking of which…Dani requested that I not post images of her or her family to the blog, so I’ve edited those pics out of the pile. I mention it just in case anyone’s wondering where the pics of the Schubert clan are. :^)

We stayed in Georgia for a total of sixteen days. Dani’s house is tucked into a lovely little neighborhood that’s not quite suburbia and not quite the boondocks, but combines the best of both worlds in the nicest way. This is Dani’s backyard (on both sides of the fence):

Inside the fence she enjoys such rural pleasures as chicken-keeping and gardening…

…and outside the fence is a lush wilderness where deer come to browse from time to time.

Until we began this road trip Luke and Elizabeth had only ever been in desert places, so I wasn’t sure how they would react to such a woodsy environment. To my delight they embraced the forest with great enthusiasm, and we spent the first few days of our visit exploring everything within hiking distance of the house.

I was overwhelmed by the sheer wealth and diversity of life in this place. Everywhere I looked there were sweeping vistas and tiny unexpected gifts of beauty that sent me scrambling for my camera.

Elizabeth found this little guy in the driveway:

We did other cool stuff there too, but I think this page is big enough, so…

To be continued!