Our day out

So of course I didn't get to sleep until 5 am on Tuesday. I woke up at 9 am.

I didn't want to go out. But I never want to go out. So I woke Evan up and said "Let's go!"

First we went to the local "fishing pond". It was pretty. It would have been prettier without all the broken down trailers all around the property.

Click the pictures to get a larger view.



After that, I was going to take Evan to the park (in a neighboring state) to get some "Action" shots. But then on the highway I saw signs for Russell Cave.

I've lived in this area for almost 20 years and I've never been there. I knew it was there, but I thought it was just something for spelunkers. I didn't know there was an actual museum (about the size of any fast food restaurant) and a tour and everything.

So on a whim, I decided to go there.

When we got there, I told Evan to sit on the wall so I could snap a picture. I was clicking and clicking with no response. I said "I hope the batteries aren't dead!" He was thinking "Oh no, no more pictures." when I got the bright idea to make sure I'd turned the power on and I got this pic, LOL.



Then we went inside.

I feel I need to say something about Evan's fake smiles here. I don't LIKE taking pictures that are posed because he has this weird fake smile. After a disastrous yearbook picture in the 7th grade, I spent an entire summer standing in front of the mirror with my eyes closed, smiling, and then looking to make sure the smile was ok. Any picture you see of me without gums showing means it's a fake picture. My fake smile is AWESOME! Anyway, here's a fake smile. The picture is good, he's still cute, but I KNOW it's a fake smile so it bothers me. I can only get a real smile if I make him laugh right before I snap the picture. I'm not that funny to him anymore, LOL.



Anywhoo, here are pics of the "museum". (There are a lot of museums here that are so small that you could spit in any direction and hit a wall...but I guess that's Southerners for you.)






Then the tour guide, Antoine, asked us if we were going to take the tour.

Me - *visions of trying to get my walker up a hill and over rocks and fallen branches and then falling down the mountain and breaking my leg* No. I'm not walking anywhere!
Ant - We have wheelchairs. And there's a walkway all along the tour.
Me - *to Evan* Are you going to push me? (I can never get the hang of those manual wheelchairs. I always go in circles, or drifting to the right. My left side is weak!!!)
E - Yeah, sure! (He would have agreed to anything at that point)

So Antoine goes to get the wheelchair. He brought back a big ass thing that would have had room for both me and Evan, LOL.

So Evan is trying to get me out the door, and he keeps banging the wheelchair into the door jamb over and over.

Me - Let me stand up and get outside, then we can fold the wheelchair and bring it out and I can get back in it.
Ant - The door is wide enough. I'll just push you.

So we start along the tour. Antoine keeps up a running dialogue monologue. At one point he said there used to be bears in Alabama, and we still have mountain lions or some shit.

Ant - But we won't see any of them on the tour, they're nocturnal.
Me - Good!



It was so peaceful out there! I always had a fantasy of living in a cabin in the mountains with a little stream running alongside.





On the inside of the cave, there were some cheesy mannequins.



But Antoine did provide a STEADY flow of information about the Mississippian, Woodland and Archaic eras. VERY STEADY.

While we were there, a father who had just started homeschooling his son showed up and started asking a lot of questions.

That gave me time to take some more nature pics, LOL.






On the way back, Antoine said he was in college and didn't know if he wanted to be a history teacher or a dental hygenist. (He has the BIGGEST gap I've ever seen IRL. Maybe that's why his interest in teeth is so out of the blue?)

I told him he should be a history teacher since it was obvious to me that it was a subject about which he was passionate.

Ant - Yeah, I think kids today have the wrong idea about history. I think if I taught HS history blah blah etc.

So I took a picture of Antoine.

He did the stereotypical black guy thing that I totally don't understand. They always try to look gangsta in their pictures. But then maybe he was hiding his gap? I don't know. I do know that the picture does not represent the man who pushed me all around on the tour.


(We are going to send Antoine a copy of the picture along with a thank you note. The tour really was educational!)

On the way out, I stopped and picked up an arrowhead for Evan. Since the tour was free I was feeling generous.

When Evan went to pay, Antoine said "Don't worry about it, man. I got it. In fact, here's another one!"



On the drive back, Evan said that it was the best day he'd had in a long time. (Awwwwwww).

We still had to do some grocery shopping though.

I decided to go to Cracker Barrel first, and then Wal-mart.

I think that story deserves it's own post at some other time because Blogger has been driving me up the effing wall and I need to publish this before it freaks out again.

Plus I'm hungry.