North Carolina, I'm mad at you. I HAD PLANS!!! The boys and I had an entire week mapped out to spend in the forests, visiting the Linville Caverns, the mountain outlooks in the Smokies; and all you did was pour rain! to the point I could barely see five feet in front of my truck on two lane winding mountain roads.
There has to be at least a three mile long list of how many people I've annoyed because I drove as slow as cold molasses on those roads. I don't know the roads people! Read the license plate. T.E.X.A.S. Granted, my kids weren't too thrilled with the rain either, but they had their tablets so hey! If you have electronics, who cares!
I found a tiny little "General Store" at some half-drowned intersection and parked the truck. The boys scrambled in for a bathroom break, while I spent ten minutes reenacting The Lion King with my cell phone. Due to the rainfall, I had to throw camping out the window again and search for a hotel with the one bar of service on my phone. I managed to find one and then spent another ten minutes waiting for Google Maps to load and tell me where to go.
We got heading in the right direction, and the rain slowly tapered off. I had a whole three bars of service, so I had Camren check the weather app. Turns out, the storm was following us and we were going to be drenched in the rain regardless.
We found this tiny little motel, and it was really adorable honestly. They had rocking chairs out front of each room, a small covered walkway, and for the one hour that the weather was clear, I took full advantage of said chair and relaxed in the cold mountain air. It was about seventy degrees outside with a damp, cool breeze. The boys stretched out on the beds in the hotel room and played a rather bickering game of slapjack, followed by side by side arguments over who was better in Pokemon Unite.
The rain started up again as a sprinkle..then a drizzle...and then a deluge. At that point, I gave up and went inside to plug in my laptop and try to get some work done. I can't say I got much done at this point, the internet was slow and glitchy.
Either way, the boys had a brochure from the front desk the next morning and Camren brought it with him back to our room, along with a cup of coffee for me and a muffin stuffed in his mouth. Garrett found an ad that said they could "Mine Their Own Gems" at a little place called the Jackson Hole Gem Mine in Franklin, NC.
I figured why not, so after a cup of coffee, half a muffin and double checking that we had all of our things, we headed to the gem mine. It was so cute and a rather lucrative business. You could purchase a bucket, and they set you up at a water table and a sifter. You get to sift out your gems and rinse them clean and then you keep what gems you find.
The kids had a ton of fun with it and it was well worth it. While as adults, we know the truth that none of the gems they found were worth a lot of money, the experience was worth it for them. They were asking about getting the gems tumbled or cut. Aunt Amanda, I defer to you on these matters.
After about an hour of gem 'mining' we decided to get back on the road. The roads were nerve-wracking to say the least. On one side, your sideview mirror is about 7 inches from a sheer rock wall, and on the other, is a sad, rusty guardrail and another six inches past that, is a sheer drop into the gorge. When I say, I drove less then twenty miles an hour...I think I saw snails passing me.
So again, to all the people I irritated by not driving 45-50mph around those curves...Well...That's your problem, not mine.
Camren double checked our weather for the day and it was icky. That leaden gray sky with the steady slow rainfall marked out our day once more. Nothing as heavy as the day before, but that steady soaking rain that just tends to make you miserable.
Garrett seemed to develop narcolepsy and the moment he heard the rain on the cab and the swish of windshield wipers, he was sound asleep once again. Camren dozed off and on occasionally, but he kept me company for most of the second half of our drive. We headed for another hotel in North Carolina and after five and a half hours, we were almost there. Edging close to dinnertime and the rain was grating on my nerves.
Camren was trying to give me directions but his timing on WHEN to turn is atrocious. I'm going to have to work with him on that. He can get left and right turns down, but if I have to move lanes... He tells me AT the stoplight that I should be turning and I'm stuck in the middle lane going straight. I didn't realize I could develop and eye twitch from bad directions but apparently I did. I know he was just trying to be helpful but....
Either way, we were maybe four miles from the hotel when I spot something in the middle of the lane, wet, black and white. It was a kitten. It was so small and still, that I went right over it with the truck and then slammed on my brakes. I put my truck in reverse and the kids were both asking what I was doing. I crawled backwards, keeping the tiny blob of wet fur in my sideview mirror. Once I was close enough, I threw it in park, checked the road, scrambled out and picked it up. Very loud meows shook it's tiny frame as it shivered.
The boys were instantly cooing and wanting to hold this poor, completely drenched, squalling kitten. My head was wondering what I was doing, while my heart knew there was no way I could leave it to die in the road.
A stray kitten.. The last thing we needed. But I wrapped it up in my hoodie, grumbled about the loss of warmth and plopped it down in Camren's lap so I could check into our hotel room. After getting checked in and getting a very large discount on our room, I found an animal shelter just down the way. The boys complained and begged but I said that if it lived through the night after we dropped it off, we could come check on it before we left town.
The boys were mollified by getting to snuggle and pet the kitten after I gave it a quick bath in the hotel sink, and they finally agreed to let it go to the shelter for the night. We arrived and both boys were fighting back tears. The sweet lady at the receptionist desk agreed to put a note that I be called in the morning if the kitten makes it through the night.
We went back to the hotel room, ordered pizza but unfortunately I was so distracted, I accidentally sent it to my mom's house in Texas. I called to tell her what happened after I reordered pizza for me and the boys and she got a good laugh out of it.
She let me know, the dog really enjoyed the pepperoni pizza. I felt slightly betrayed. I talked with the kids over and over that we couldn't travel with a cat. It was too young and I didn't think it would make it through the night. I told them that the animal shelter would call us if it did and we could go see it and hope it had a good life.
I still don't know what was going through my head when I made that statement. But to sleep we went, and I should have thought about things more.
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Love,
Amie and The Boys