Ga Gees, Catfish, and Airline Vouchers

It's always amazing to me how varied our country is and that fact is never more apparent to me than when I fly to Arkansas. When you leave south Florida, the land is hidden beneath a sea of Spanish tile. Nearly every house down here is covered in red tile and they are so close together that you don't notice anything else - except for the abnormally high percentage of swimming pools in back yards. When you fly into Little Rock, the landscape is so green. You fly in over the east side of town passing rice fields and river delta.

Everything else is changing overnight, but Arkansas seems to stay the same. I know it's changing - and probably if I spent more than a short week there I'd notice the differences. But many of the kids in my mom's 1st grade class are the children of people I went to high school with - and they were children of people my dad went to high school with! How different it is to live in a small town!

The main reason we went to Arkansas was to go to my grandmother's 85th birthday party on October 14. She is the oldest of 5 children - all still living. I didn't take this picture, so I can't take credit for the perfect lighting, but that beautiful backdrop is my parent's front yard.

Nanny is the one in pink. (Back L-R Veda, Lorice, Bob. Front Dot, Johnny). I'm sure they all have life experiences that would be interesting to retell, but other than my Nanny, I'm most impressed and interested in Uncle Johnny's life. He had polio as a child and had a withered arm as a result (he hasn't always been in a wheelchair). Inspite of his handicap, he worked full time (as a postal carrier on a rural route) and raised livestock. He didn't let him hold it back. Pretty inspiring, I think.

This picture shows my cousins on my dad's side. (L-R Rex, Alison, Lane, Nanny, Corey, Lori, me, Brian - my brother)

Here's Nanny with her two great-grandkids - Caleb and Tyler, my cousin Lori's son, he's 5. Caleb really liked Nanny!

The week I was in Arkansas went by in a flash! On Friday we went to Dorey's Catfish Resturant in Leola. Leola is in the middle of nowhere - that is it's on a country road that connects two highways (highways, not interstates). Even still, Dorey's is always packed. They have a petting zoo with deer, goats, llamas (all animals that Caleb delightedly proclaimed to be "ga gees" - which is also what he called my parents' dogs and has used for Mako since we've been back).

Our flight back on Sunday included about an hour layover in Atlanta. The flight was overbooked and they needed 6 volunteers to give up their seat. We volunteered and in return they gave us $800 in travel vouchers and $28 in meal coupons. They also put us up for the night in the Crowne Plaza Hotel - it was very nice.

I would advise avoiding the Atlanta airport if at all possible in your travels. It was way too crowded and busy. When we checked in the next morning, the line for security had (this is in no way an exaggeration) at least 1000 people in it. It was insane. We mistakenly thought that we had been given the boarding passes for our new flight, so we just got in line. When we realized our mistake, Rob left me and Caleb in line and went to get the passes. I eventually had to step out of the line and waited for him, then I felt panicked (like a lost kid at Disney World) and went looking for him. I found a payphone and tried to call his cell, but it ate my quarters. By then I couldn't remember what shirt Rob was wearing and knew I wasn't where he told me to wait, so I went up to an airport worker, and of course, burst into tears. (I'm still not sure why I did that! Rob said he knew I would cry and shouldn't have left me.) The worker pulled out a cell phone and had dialed half his number when he came up to me. It turned out that our stroller let us skip most of the line and we got through security in time to get a Cinnabun. And let's face it, Cinnabuns are the real reason we fly.