October 21 '06

                                                    

Volume 542

                   


Trace Trips Enjoying A Route To Nashville

The Picnic's OverOn consecutive weekends, Barbara and I recently traveled the Natchez Trace from Tupelo, MS to Nashville, TN. Our first trip enabled us to visit our friend, John Carter, shortly before his death, and the second trip was to attend John's funeral. The fall foliage had not fully peaked, but the farther north we drove, the more colorful were the hues of autumn.

A lot of folks avoid traveling the Trace because of the reduced speed limit. Sure, the limit is 50 miles per hour, but anybody who regularly travels the Trace will affirm my observation that as long as one keeps his or her speed under sixty, most park rangers will not issue a moving violation to the over-the-limit motorist.

Because, we knew our trip would take us through the lunch hour and because we don't know which towns near the Trace have restaurants catering to Trace travelers, we opted to pack a picnic lunch to enjoy at one of the many roadside stops on the Trace.

Barbara and I have less aversion to picnicking than do our two children. Rayanne remembers the years of hers and Jason's youth when we took Grandma Carter with us to visit my older brother in Minnesota. Mom always packed plenty of food for sandwiches and snacks. We'd start looking at the map, searching for the roadside park we'd be closest to at lunchtime.

"We'd see a sign for a McDonalds," Rayanne recalls. "But, Daddy wouldn't stop. Our mouths would be watering; we were so envious of other kids whose parents would buy them a hamburger for lunch."

I find consolation in knowing I helped my children develop memories of our family vacations. I'd bet they wouldn't remember anything along the way, or where we stopped to eat, if I had given in to their pleas for fast food.

On our first trip, Barbara and I stopped for lunch at Lower Glenrock and except for a handful of motorcyclists we had the place to ourselves. Our lunch consisted of shaved ham sandwiches and pimento cheese sandwiches halved and split between us with a scattering of potato chips. Barbara also packed a bag of apple slices for us to enjoy along with individual containers of caramel dip. I remember thinking our picnic food was probably better than any food for miles around, and I was sure the ambiance was better than anything short of the Peabody in Memphis.

We should probably get out more on weekends, as we were somewhat amazed to see so many motorbikes and cyclists taking advantage of the mild October weather and the relative solitude of the Natchez Trace. From Tishomingo State Park to Nashville, we counted sixty bikers on Saturday and seventy on Sunday. We didn't count cyclists, but there appeared to be almost as many cyclists as bikers. On our next trip to Nashville, we counted 122 bikers. That day bikers outnumbered cyclists by ten to one.

Barbara and I took frequent rest breaks to coincide with points of interest. In Tennessee, at Water Valley Overlook, we stopped for a scenic site we had not previously visited and walked a nature trail near a small waterfall. I tried to imagine how the forest must have looked back when the Trace was an Indian trail. Except for the paved pathway, I could easily envision myself with a small party of Indians moving along the ridges beside the waterfall.

The final few miles of the Trace that ends at Pasquo, about fifteen miles from downtown Nashville, are extremely curvy. Safety dictates a forty-mph speed limit, and while it's slower than I care to drive, I'm able to enjoy the scenery.

Double Arch Bridge - courtesy of TheFunTimesGuide.com http://fanklin.thefuntimesguide.com/natchez-trace/natchez_colors.phpA portion of this stretch of the Trace contains a uniquely constructed bridge connecting hills on either side of Highway 96. It's called the Double Arch Bridge. To see it and drive across it is reason enough for making a trip to Nashville via the Trace. The Bridge is more than a quarter-mile long and rises 155 feet above the highway below it. The palms of my hands get sweaty just thinking about it even now. The photo of the bridge is used by permission. My thanks of appreciation go to Jim and Lynnette at TheFunTimesGuide.com.

We had hoped to photograph a ground-up view of the double arch bridge on our return trip from Nashville via Franklin, TN, and Hwy 96. Poor highway markings through Franklin thwarted our plans. Rather than backtracking, we elected to drive south to Columbia and then west to connect with the Trace. Since we’ve probably not made our final trip to Nashville, perhaps we’ll have better success next time.

Returning to Pontotoc, we exited the Trace near Tishomingo and stopped by to see our family in Belmont, and visited our granddaughters, Merilese and Katherine, and our daughter and son-in-law, Rayanne and Anson, respectively. Granddaughter Anna and Grand-dog Zoey were also there.


Electrical Issues PCs, Router And TV

A few weeks ago, lightning stuck a tree in my neighbor's yard, rupturing a gas line near the base of the tree, and a fire ensued. The sight of fire trucks and firemen scampering about brought some excitement to the neighborhood for a couple of hours. At the time, I counted myself fortunate that no damage was done to our humble abode. I later discovered some minor damage to a few of my electrical connections.

I believe the first hint that our house had been affected was the sudden appearance of a couple of purple spots on our television screen. The spots are about the size of my hand and are at the extremities of a diagonal line extending from the upper left corner to the lower right corner of the picture tube. Our TV has a 27-inch screen, so the hand-sized spots are not that much of a distraction, except that depending on the background color, the purple spots change colors as the background changes. Yes, a new TV would be nice, but I'm holding off to see if that's something Santa leaves on Christmas Eve.

A few days after discovering the TV had been affected by the storm, I discovered a problem with the computers in our computer room. Neither of them could access the Internet, which seemed strange, because the wireless portion of our router worked fine. Jason's PC at his house connects to the Internet via a wireless link, as does my business laptop whenever I'm using it at home. The two computers in the computer room are "hard-wired" to the router via CAT5 network cables.

As best I can determine, lightning zapped the router, knocking out the ports that connect to the PCs in the computer room and frying one of the boards inside one computer. Both computers continue to function, except neither can connect to the Internet. I am able to bypass the router and hook one of the computer-room PCs directly to the DSL connection and access the Internet, but doing so prevents any other household PCs from accessing the Internet.

There's a lot about lightning that I don't understand, and I won't attempt to explain how some of my electrical connections were adversely affected by the lightning strike at my neighbor's, but Cecil Fauver recently shared with me that he saw the lightning bolt that ruptured the gas line.

"It was raining like crazy," Cecil recalled. "You know, we didn't get hardly any rain in August and September. I decided I would get my car out of the carport, drive around the neighborhood, and let the rain wash off the dust. I had driven a hundred yards or so towards your subdivision when I saw the biggest bolt of lightning I'd ever seen. It scared the fire out of me. I turned myself around and went back home. In a few minutes, fire trucks were screaming by my house."

I suppose it's possible my PC connections and the TV weren't directly affected by the lightning strike, but if not, then it's safe to assume they had the fire scared out of them.


Bodock Beau Amen Pharoah

Most readers can sympathize with the plight of a congregation listening to a long-winded preacher, and those who are growing old will appreciate the humorous aspect of aging.

Moses In The Congregation

A visiting minister was very long-winded. Worse, every time he would make a good point during his sermon and a member of the congregation responded with "Amen" or "That's right, preacher" he would get wound up even more and launch into another lengthy discourse.

Finally, the local preacher started responding to every few sentences with "Amen, Pharaoh!"

The guest minister wasn't sure what that meant, but after several more "Amen, Pharaohs" he finally concluded his very lengthy sermon.

After the service concluded and the congregation had left, the visiting minister turned to the local preacher and asked, "What exactly did you mean when you said "Amen, Pharaoh?"

He replied, "I was telling you to let my people go!"

Shared by Carl Wayne Hardeman.

On Getting Older

Reporters interviewing a 104-year-old woman: "And what do you think is the best thing about being 104?" the reporter asked. She simply replied, "No peer pressure."

The nice thing about being senile is you can hide your own Easter eggs.

I've sure gotten old! I've had two bypass surgeries, a hip replacement, new knees, fought prostate cancer and diabetes. I'm half blind, can't hear anything quieter than a jet engine, take 40 different medications that make me dizzy, winded, and subject to blackouts, have bouts with dementia. Have poor circulation; hardly feel my hands and feet anymore. I can't remember if I'm 85 or 92 and I've lost all my friends, but, thank God, I still have my driver's license.

I feel like my body has gotten totally out of shape, so I got my Doctor’s permission to join a fitness club and start exercising. I decided to take an aerobics class for seniors. I bent, twisted, gyrated, jumped up and down, and perspired for an hour. But, by the time I got my leotards on, the class was over.

An elderly woman decided to prepare her will and told her preacher she had two final requests. First, she wanted to be cremated, and second, she wanted her ashes scattered over Wal-Mart.

"Wal-Mart?" the preacher exclaimed. "Why Wal-Mart?"

"Then I'll be sure my daughters visit me twice a week"

My memory's not as sharp as it used to be. Also, my memory's not as sharp as it used to be.

Know how to prevent sagging? Just eat till the wrinkles fill out.

It's scary when you start making the same noises as your coffeemaker.

These days about half the stuff in my shopping cart says, "For fast relief."

Remember: You don’t stop laughing because you grow old, You grow old because you stop laughing.

Now, I think you’re supposed to share this with 5 or 6, maybe 10 others Oh heck, give it to a bunch of your friends if you can remember who they are!

Shared by Ken Gaillard.

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