The Golden Isles -- The Silver Year

Next month Hubs and I celebrate our Silver Anniversary.  A few years ago Hubs would ask me, "What are we going to do for our 25 year anniversary?"  And I would say I didn't know, but I knew I really didn't want to go somewhere and stay in a hotel and spend lots of money.  When you get as old as I am you really do know who you are and for this anniversary we are going to do what we loved to do during those first early years together--and that is to go on a road trip and camp, alone with no kids.

The Golden Isles off the coast of Georgia are undeveloped, understated and quiet.  We are going to Cumberland Island, somewhere I've wanted to go for awhile, a place only accessible by ferry or private boat, maintained as a National Park and limits the number of people who can visit in a day (300).  Most people take the 45 minute ferry ride for a day trip and only 60 are able to camp there at night.

Beyond the campground is a boardwalk to the beach.  You can rent bicycles and look at the ruins called Dungeness built by the Carnegie family in the 1800's but burned in 1959.  It had 6-foot thick walls and 16 fireplaces:

It is 17 miles long with no cars, just wild horses.

We bought a two-person tent since the large one we took on our road trip across the country this past summer is too big and the  mats we used to sleep on when we were in our 20's have been replaced by a queen-sized blow up mattress.  You can bring as much as you want on the ferry and carts are provided to get the gear from the dock to the campground.  Reservations were made almost 6 months ago.  At first we thought we would go in April, closer to our actual anniversary, but it was booked six months ago and we were happy with a weekend in March--thinking it would be cooler.  It's been summer-time hot in Georgia so it may be sticky, and it may be rainy but it is going to be very special.

We have farmed the three boys out to three different families, and for Youngest son I also coordinated an additional family to  pick him up from original family to take him to his flag football game.  I have been feeling a little off-kilter the past couple of days due to what this flag football mom said to me the other day.  When she heard that we were going camping for our big anniversary she asked all wide-eyed, "Is this something that You want to do?"  And I said yes.  Then after the game this past weekend, I told the group of a couple other moms and dads there we know that we wouldn't see them next week but that Youngest would be there, and a couple of them asked what we were doing.  When we told them another mom made a similar comment and the dads were kind of staring at us and one of them told us how the boy scouts go there on a camping trip (not him and his son--perhaps older boys).  These three other boys are cub scouts (my son is not) and the annual routine is the camp at nearby places and it is a dad thing and the women do not go and are glad they do not.

Later that night I was telling Hubs that I felt like I was very different, like an oddball.  He said it is just because of the boyscouts that it has played out in those families that camping is a dad and son thing.  Maybe in looking at me, people who do not really know me think I am prim and proper.  When Hubs and I first married, one of his brothers and his wife invited us to go to a very quiet, understated island in the Bahamas where you bring much of your own food, do your own cooking, etc., and they seemed to have to make it clear to me that it is not a place for blowdryers.  I realized he didn't know me well because I went with the more primitive flow even better than Hubs (and I use the blowdryer infrequently).

It has affected me a little bit these past couple days that I guess it sounded strange to these other women that we are having a very low cost, camping anniversary for our 25th.  But today I am over it, and excited about us continuing our long ago tradition of a road trip with new discoveries.

For other spins on the Road Trip, visit Gretchen.

Going to the Movies in the 1970's

In the spirit of the Academy Awards this Sunday, Gretchen is hosting a Spin Cycle with "movies" as the theme.

I tell my boys that when I was around 10 or 11 in the 1970's I'd ride my bike or walk to a local movie theater either by myself or with friends.  They cannot believe that sometimes it was a double feature.  As if I'd ever have my 10 year old at the movies alone now for 4 or 5 hours......

I remember sneaking in my Panasonic tape recorder, with a sweater draped over it.  It looked just like this:

(when I Googled this image I found it on a site that was selling it as a "vintage Panasonic tape recorder)

I recall bringing in my tape recorder when I went to see the Wizard of Oz and The Sound of Music separately.  Again, the boys are amazed that those movies played in the theater.  When the songs began during the movie, I'd record them.  Back at home I'd play them over and over, even writing down the words to the Scarecrow and the Tin Man's solos.  That is why almost 40 years later I know those words.

When I was in the 11th grade I started working at the movie theater--located in Westwood Village, CA near UCLA.  My brother had worked there previously and was friends with the manager and got me the job.  I'd work usually Friday nights and Sundays.  It was a great first job experience--I enjoyed it so much--I'd either sell tickets or be at the concession stand.  I remember sometimes the owner--Ted Mann--would come in and we'd be prepared to offer him what he wanted to eat.  He'd stand there and reach his hand right down into the popcorn bin and scoop out some and eat it.

We would of course watch movies over and over -- during our break with food from nearby, or after work and we'd get free passes to all the 4 or 5 other single theaters in the area.  I also worked there the summers after my first two years of college in California.  I remember once Tatum O'Neal coming with a friend to see her own movie, "Little Darlings" (I thought that was strange).  What is also remarkable is that it was filmed near Atlanta, to where I would then move--about three years later.  For some reason that movie was never released on dvd, but years later I consider it one of the most poignant movies ever.

(I love the clip best from about 1:20 seconds in.  No one again is as natural looking ast Kristy McNichol, whose smile can light up the whole screen).

The Dream that Preceded the "I Do"

 

With the new year and all I have decided to jump in on the Spin Cycle -- I don't think I have ever participated in a blog carnival and am excited to start.  The Spin Cycle host has now gone on a road trip hand off from FL to CA, to Gretchen now and each week she will toss out a theme.  This week’s theme is “Dreams”.  And for days I have not been able to get Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” out of my head. (Thunder only happens when it’s raining, Players only love you when they’re playing, Women they will come and they will go, When the rain washes you clean you’ll know.  You will know.  Oh, oh, oh you’ll know).

I wanted to share a dream that my husband had about 27 years ago.  So, it’s not my dream but I was in his dream.  I had not thought about his dream for a while, but the other night we watched Matt Damon in The Adjustment Bureau.  When the movie ended Hubs said to me, “That was just like the dream I had before we were married.  The one in which I knew I was going to ask you to marry me.”

Ohhhhhh yeah!  It really was a lot like that movie.  

I had only been going out with Hubs for about 3.5 months when I graduated college first (I’m a year older hehehehe) and I moved to Atlanta which was about a 5 hour drive away.  About 3 weeks later I drove to visit him for the weekend and he asked me to marry him.  The next year we would be apart due to him finishing college so you could say it was like a promise-asking.

Before I arrived for that weekend he’d had a dream in which the two of us were at a very large city hotel, dressed up for a fancy party.  All during the night as we walked down halls and went up stairs and came out of elevators there were people chasing us.  They also tried to block us from going down stairs or from entering a hallway.  It was like a maze, and we had to work together to figure out which halls to choose.  This went on for a long time.  Finally we found a grand staircase that we needed to walk down to get out of a lavish front lobby door.  Right when we were within arms reach of the door, a man popped out in front of us with his arm outstretched as if he was about to block our way.

But instead he smiled really big and stepped back and opened the lobby doors for us.  The partygoers that had been in the hotel trying to block us previously all stopped and gathered and smile.  Through the glass windows in the lobby you could see a large, white limo waiting for us with a chauffeur.  There was a lady in the limo who greeted us nicely and asked us to get in so we did and the limo drove off.  Hubs has said he was very, very happy and his dream meant that he had his answer--that asking me and marrying me was the right thing to do.

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I’m really tickled that he brought it up the other night and I have enjoyed asking him over the past couple days to give me the deets (he hardly remembers things from last week so this is always intriguing to me).  And it’s all quite getting us in the mood for a little celebration of 25 years’ wed in a few months.