Wheeeeeee! Thud.

The road trip home is like a slow sigh, knowing the best is over and something is looming hard and heavy in the near future....er, what's it called? Oh, yes, reality.  No matter how you look at it, the vacation funslide ends in that hard, hard ground that goes by the name of The Job, Etc. at the bottom. You know the thud is coming.

Such was my thinking as we left Ohio, winding along the river into West Virginia (briefly) and west through Kentucky.  How much fun was this going to be, I pouted. Might as well just high-tail it quickly back to Texas and get it over with.

As it turns out, My Old Kentucky Home state park in Bardstown, Kentucky, was a pretty fun stop.  The park was right in the middle of the historic little town, founded by French in 1779 and containing the old jail, graveyard, schoolhouse, and tavern.  The names of the dead on the headstones made the town come alive for me, thinking of the souls that bore those monikers once walking these very same streets, taking a drink at the bar, scorning the scallywags on display in front of the jail.  Probably wishing they didn't have to work so hard either.

That night a great storm blew through and our mighty underdog tent withstood the test like a champ.  We lay inside listening to thunder roll across the skies in a powerful timpani orchestral performance.  Mr. Dieter Dog, now only smelling very faintly of skunk, was very happy to be allowed back in the tent; he pretends to be fearless but he is quite a-skeered of bellowing skies.

The next day took us into Memphis where we were able to camp near the Mississippi River, just a few miles from Graceland.  It was near the anniversary of The King's death, so we drove by just to witness the spectacle, and I have to say, it did him proud -- the street show was every bit as gaudy as one of his stone-studded jumpsuits.  Elvis impersonators were jail-house rockin' a throng of fans under a big tent across from the mansion, and the Lisa Marie, Elvis' airplane, looked like it had made an eye-popping landing in the parking lot.

After all that excitement (and we didn't even get in to Graceland itself, with the pooch and all), we worked up a powerful appetite and headed on down to Beale Street as the sun went down.  With the delta blues blaring out of joints for several blocks long, and a team of acrobats back-flipping down the pedestrian street to tourist amazement and applause, we sat outside the fine establishment simply named Pig on Beale and happily ate a huge mess of the best pork ribs I've ever had the pleasure of downing.  Bone sucking good. 

We drove to East Texas the next night and camped beside a lake, which was, as all but one lake in Texas is, a river-dammed reservoir.  We went in for a dip to counter the suffocating heat, but we only succeeded in getting slimy.  The bathrooms were swarming with mosquitoes and gnats.  We had a fire despite the relentless heat to keep the bugs at bay, and then spent a clammy night praying for a breeze.  I can see how one could hate camping, and the next day drove home in eager anticipation of air conditioning.  How happily I entered the house, exhausted, and turned on the air conditioner.  How very, very frustratingly sad did I fall into bed when the damn thing would not come on.

Thud.

(Ah, but it was a fun ride. How many more days till I get another turn on the slide?)