Blue Ridge Parkway.

Carole and I visited another National Park inn. This time the Pisgah Inn at milepost 408 on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We chose this weekend to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary since we both had to work through our actual anniversary date earlier in the week.

We only had to face about a three-hour drive to get to the Pisgah Inn so we didn't even have to leave all that early to get to the Parkway. But one thing about driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway is that the going is VERY SLOW. Even slower than the 45mph top posted speed limit. There is almost always heavy traffic at favored spots along the Parkway and often people merging in and out of the flow. So once you get to the Parkway itself, you just can't make good time.

Which is fine. Because the Parkway was meant to be savored.

Soon after our arrival. The window looks out on the balcony which has a door access.

This was the view that greeted us when we stepped out on the balcony.

Sunrise, this morning (06-22-2014).

This bunny was enjoying the clover beneath our balcony this morning.

And no mountain excursion is worth having if I can't get out to hunt for waterfalls and go hiking!

Next Vacation

Carole and I will be celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary this weekend. We'll be taking a trip to a lodge in the NC mountains where we've wanted to stay for some time. I hope it's cool up there above 5,000 feet!

Plus, we're planning our next mountain vacation. We've settled on a spot in Virginia where we've also never been. But we have to get the trailer ready for the trip. Two of the unfortunate things that happened on the latest trip (Outer Banks) is that a leak developed between the water heater and the onboard water tank. It's apparently an easy fix for an expert, but far beyond my ability to repair. It's not a problem for us if we have city water hookups since the leak is only between the onboard water tank and the water heater. But we need to have it fixed ASAP because we like to use out of the way campgrounds that don't have water hookups.

Second, those notorious winds at the Outer Banks tore off our canopy on the trailer and utterly destroyed it. I had to trash the entire unit. Replacing it will cost me somewhere between $700 and $800. Sad, but true.

So...there are mountains in our vacation future.

The wind utterly destroyed our canopy.

Feels weird to see the Casita without its awning.

High country, we're on the way!

28th Anniversary

My beautiful wife as we got ready to head out for the evening.

Carole and I went out to eat at Chima Brazillian Restaurant tonight to celebrate our 28th wedding anniversary. We had a great time!

I didn't get any writing done today, but that's okay. I need to take a day off now and again.

At the building where we parked (Hearst Towers).

The lovely couple.

Yeah, Charlotte has a real downtown.

We even have street musicians these days!

Forgetting

I have a really lousy memory. I always have, even way back into my early childhood. This has been mildly frustrating, and as to its source or solution, I cannot say.

It may have something to do with the fact that my imagination is always working in overdrive. This has ever been the way of it, even when I was just a very little kid reading comics, watching movies, or pursuing novels. I reckon I can blame it on Jack Kirby, Willis O'Brien, and Ray Bradbury.

Having a crappy memory leads to a lot of social problems. I tend to forget faces, names, appointments...that kind of thing. But the worst of the social crimes of which I am guilty is that I cannot recall any birthday or date, no matter how important those birthdays or dates are to other people. Is it that I'm an asshole? Well...I'm not vindictive that way. I just can't recall birthdays--not even my own.

Maybe this has something to do with the fact that for many years my parents had my birthday on the wrong date. When your mom was the mother of eight kids (plus two miscarriages), then I can understand how it's super-difficult to keep up with something as mundane as a birthday. In my case, they only had it wrong by a few days, but wrong it was. Finally, when I was nine or ten years old, they dragged my birth certificate out of the box and realized that it was June 28, 1957. I think that they had the year right...it was just the day that they kept getting wrong (when they recalled it at all).

There have been times when I don't even remember my birthday myownself. Many have been the years when, around the second week of July or so, I will suddenly recall..."Hey! My birthday was two weeks ago!" No one else remembered it, so I was left to ignore it, too.

It's no big deal.

But from time to time over the years I've had people make a deal out of my birthday. My wife, sometimes, and my sister, sometimes. But I can't recall their birthdays, at all. When are those birthdays? If you told me, I might know. The only reason that I can remember to mark my wife's birthday is that she constantly reminds me as the date approaches. There are occasions when I'll remember to do something nice for her on that day in March. (Don't ask me what day...I can't recall. She'll remind me again starting in January.)

Unfortunately for those around me, my head is constantly ringing with ideas and plots for novels and short stories and scripts that will likely never see the light of print. Is this selfish? I don't know. It may be. It's definitely compulsive and not something that I can help. The world, apparently, would be much poorer if not for folk who suffer this malady. Without them, there would be no novels or movies or paintings or sculptures or comic books. Well...maybe some how-to stuff.

At any rate, that's the way it is with me. I apologize for the troubles and bruised feelings it's caused over the years. I've tried everything: notes of reminder, calendars, bulletin boards, what-have-you. The trouble is that I tend to lose track of such things. (Of course!) What good is that notebook reminding you of someone's birthday if that notebook was misplaced ages ago? Alas.

So here I sit, wondering about it all. I've just finished writing my latest novel. Ben Whitaker and Amy Braun and Sheriff Brace and Billy Sothern and Ghost Boy Tommy and the bad seed are all in their places in 108K words. I've consigned them to their fates. I spent a lot of time with them--almost as much time as I've spent with real humans over the course of the writing of that novel.

And now I'm at it again. There's a nameless assassin whose precognitive abilities aid him in hunting down chemically altered berserkers escaped from a corporate prison. The personalities and actions of these folk will fill my head for the next few months. There's nothing I can do about it. They talked to me one day while I was daydreaming and their voices were loudest and foremost in my mind. I can see them. The color of their hair; the cut of their clothes; how they react to the heat, the cold, with being afraid, happy, alone, on the run...it goes on endlessly.

My 25th wedding anniversary is coming up. I'll have to ask Carole the exact date. I keep getting it mixed up with my birthday and my son's birthday and Father's Day and some Holiday that falls around that general time period.

But the 25th anniversary. Damn. I'd best not forget that one.

Clueless in North Carolina.