Vacation Part I: Prelude to disaster

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . July 27, 2009 . 12:00PM

Those that know us know that we rarely take vacations. We talk a fine talk about going on about one a week, however, and, as pathetic as it is, they are not huge island resort vacations. Nope, our fantasies are “maybe we could go to Cincinnati next weekend?” Cincinnati. I’m gonna let that soak in for a little bit.

We head to Gatlinburg, TN about once every two years for a 3-4 day break and if you haven’t been, it’s a nice place to vacation. There is far more there than just Dollywood. This year, the idea of an extended family vacation was really appealing. And by “extended family vacation” I don’t mean “a longer family vacation,” I mean “a whole mess of folks who share your dna in one cabin where it’s a possibility that one may not come out alive because they’ve ticked you off to the point where you’ve considered where to bury the body.” Yet, that sounded appealing this year, so we decided to go for it.

On Friday, my family (me, Leon and A.J. minus the pets), my mom and sister and my aunt and her family drove to Kentucky Lake for a 3 day jaunt at Prizer Point Marina and Resort. The goal was to relax on Friday night, go out on a pontoon boat all day on Saturday and go home on Sunday. As this isn’t terribly far from us, it sounded like an ideal vacation. I’m a voracious reader, and a whole day floating in water while reading a book is my ideal kind of day. The only way it could have been better would have been if there was a hammock for me to rest in while I was on the pontoon boat. You know, so I could have pretended to be a ship mate from old sea days…

Look, if “voracious reader” didn’t give away a vivid imagination, I don’t know what else I can tell you. Some of you totally get why the idea of the hammock on the pontoon boat appealed to me. If you didn’t, you won’t and that’s cool. Step off, homie.

We were doing any of that “rugged camping out” crap. Nope, we were staying in a 3 bedroom condo with all the fixins’. It overlooked the water and A.J. and his cousin Lola and his other cousin Tyler went out to the water area behind the condo while the rest of us settled in for the weekend.

My sister, Livvy, spent about 3 hours trying to blow up a beach ball that is about twice the size of her. Incidentally, she never used it that weekend. Leon and my uncle Jeff spent time catching up, as they usually do when they first see each other after an extended period of time. The rest of us were unpacking food items and getting ready to head down to the pool.

Leon and I missed quite a bit of pool time. We decided to enjoy air conditioning and reading time. When we finally went down there, we found out that Lola had a flesh wound, which may or may not have been a “sue-able” offense against the facility and that there was a creepy boy that was either stalking my cousin Justin or my sister Livvy, but I can’t be sure which.

There was also an interesting sewer smell that wafted through the area every 5 minutes, that I kept attributing to Leon, bless his heart, who was sleeping next to me. So much so that when my mom suggested I move to a more shaded area, I left his stinky sleeping carcass there. Poor guy. We realized it wasn’t him later when Ashley’s boyfriend Ricky smelled it from across the pool. Then again…

I didn’t go swimming on Friday because I thought I’d have plenty of time the rest of the weekend to go swimming. Oh, I was wrong, so very wrong. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Our night ended with a rousing game of spoons in which my cousin, Ashley, ended up on the floor with a bent spoon. A.J. and Lola had spent some time collecting some shells and my aunt and I watched the sun go down. Life was feeling good. As it usually does before the bottom drops out.

….to be continued….