The River Road

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Sunday was for rain.

Collette, Linnea, and Puck (dressed sharply in his new orange collared shirt from his Aunt Rose) arrived early for church and afterward met the rest of the family (minus Carrie who was at work) at the house. An excursion was planned.

Sometime after one o’clock, they drove over to pick up Grandma Combs with Joe and Rose following behind in Dad’s car. They were all headed for the river road.

It had been awhile since they had driven that road. A few changes had been made. The caves under the Native American mural had been fenced off, likely due to unwanted company and bonfires at unearthly times of the night. The little old school in one of the river towns had been mown down to make way for a new apartment complex. New shops and cafes had risen, including “The Rotten Apple”. But most stayed unchanged.

“Is that island still for sale?” Linnea asked Mom from the backseat.

She pointed to a far-off strip of land coming up from the distance.

“I don’t know, but it really was for sale in the papers a couple of years of ago.”

“I want to buy it,” Linnea grinned schemingly.

“Alright, Linnea, you just march up over there and put down a bid,” Grandma said.

“Two cents,” Dad suggested.

“You tell them you’re Linnea Snicketts and that you’re there to bid on that island,” Grandma continued.

“I could sell lemonade and earn money.”

“And then you could call it Lemonade Island,” Mom told her.

Linnea thought about this. But they were soon arriving at the Finn Inn and the island was forgotten.

Inside, Rose and Linnea grabbed the seats closest to the fish. Puck was bundled up in a sweater and cuddled to sleep with Mom, pretty much snoozing through the entire meal. Joe and Francis made spectacles and halos over Grandma’s head with their giant rings of onion.

“That fish has been staring at me the whole time,” Rose hid behind the partition, suspiciously eying the said fish, which was, indeed, staring at her.

“Maybe he thinks you’re his brethren,” Collette told her.

“I am not his brethren,” Rose said grumpily.

Later, the same fish tried to take a nip at her cell phone which she had leaned up against the glass.

“He tried to eat my phone!” Rose was shocked.

After dinner, they spent a short while at the Pere Marquette lodge where Mom and Dad met some folks who had spent their honeymoon there 57 years ago. In the gift shop, Grandma bought Dad some horehound candy and Joe bought a cylindrical box of bamboo tea incense. Francis and Linnea played checkers with the big chess board, and Rose snapped pictures of everything as usual.

Later, they stopped by the river with dessert on the picnic tables (baked by Grandma).

Dad worked on attempts to headlock Joe and Francis and knock them into the river bay. Rose and Joe chased geese around the grass.

“Did you see me herd those geese into the lake?” Joe laughed, running up to them.

“It looked like a waterfall of geese,” Mom chuckled.

“You know if the park ranger saw you doing that, you’d be in trouble,” Dad warned.

Rose continued to snap pictures of the disgruntled geese floating in a posse in the bay, no doubt waiting for her to leave before returning to land.