Travels Across the Good Ole U.S. of A.

Friday, March 3, 2006

[7:07am] It almost seemed a day to record memories, perhaps from the numerous vacations the Snicketts family had taken over the past years:

Arkansas (Hot Springs) – 5, (1990)

Virginia (Williamsburg, Gettysburg, D.C.) – 6, (Autumn – 1991)

Arkansas (Hot Springs) – 7, (1992)

Colorado (Grand Canyon, Great Divide) – 8, (Autumn – 1993)

Arizona, New Mexico (Flagstaff) – 9, (Autumn – 1994)

Georgia, North Carolina (Atlanta) – 10, (September – 1995)

Arkansas (Hot Springs) – 11, (1996)

1997 – No vacation – Mom pregnant with Linnea, Brit & Judah spend the summer

Branson (Andy Williams) – 13, (October – 1998)

Michigan (Macinac Island, White Fish Point) – 14, (September – 1999)

Tennessee (Smokies, Shiloh) – 15, (August – 2000)

Hungary (Budapest) – 16, (Mission Trip June/July 2001)

Wyoming (Tetons, Yellowstone) – 16, (August – 2001)

Maine/New York/D.C. (Kennebunkport, N.Y. City) – 19 (May/June – 2004)

Ah, the good old days before Collette was eight – before her world turned upside down. Before she really knew fear. Perhaps she was five, back in 1990, on their first trip to Arkansas. It might have even been 1989. She remembered little of it. Mostly pictures brought it back to her – floating on the black lake in pink inner-tubes with Carrie and Dad, the swimming pool up by the timeshares where she watched older kids dive and one guy lost his key to the timeshare at the bottom of the pool. It bore a flat pear-shaped bright orange key chain. Or maybe it was pink – it could have been bright pink. There was also a walk in a park of sorts, if she remembered rightly. It must have been late summer then and Grandma Snicketts was with them.

When she was six, 1991 – she was living for six months in Ohio. And towards the end of their stay, both grandmas came up to visit before they shoved off to Virginia for the second vacation (in her memory bank anyway). There were gravestones of soldiers in their travels to the timeshare, and it was rather cool, she remembered. It was the first time Collette had really seen the ocean – cold and gray, but the water was still warm. Or perhaps she was thinking of Atlanta, five years later. But there was water and sand at least. Mom had made her and Carrie little pouches to hang over their shoulders to collect rocks and shells. Carrie’s was blue and Collette’s was red – a leather-type of material. During the day they visited Williamsburg (she remembered riding in a carriage and the street and several shops). In another shop somewhere outside Williamsburg, Collette remembered seeing a bin of pretty colored soaps in all shapes and sizes. Although she selected three or so to purchase, she could only remember in particular, a white soap in the shape of a fan. In the evening, they enjoyed exploring the two-level timeshare and reading stories of Johnny Tremain and other Colonial tales under a table with a blanket thrown over the top – a cave of sorts. Mom read to them by the light of a red flashlight pen. One evening when Mom and Dad were out for dinner and the grandmas were chatting in the living room, Collette and Carrie got in trouble with them for making Play-do circles (like little colored cheese wheels, which Dad had shown them how to make, and they thought quite amazing). Apparently they were not supposed to get into the Play-do and were scolded, although not very severely. There was Gettysburg another day – the quiet and fields and hills and colors. A peaceful place. And then they visited the Raven family one evening (who were living near D.C. at the time) where Janek taught Grandma how to play checkers on the computer, which she thought absolutely marvelous. Or perhaps that was another time when they visited the Ravens. They moved about so much. It likely was another time, for Collette remembered them driving by the Washington monument, with Mr. Raven pointing it out to them on a gray afternoon. But that particular evening with both grandmas, Collette was asked to read to all the kids there gathered, minus Aaron (who was too old for such things) which would have been about six kids or so – The Gnats of Knotty Pine, with Nevermore to help with the big words. Collette still had a picture of them all piled onto the couch while she read. And that was Virginia her first time there.

Nacchianti and Creole Coca-Cola came in with their mom to fold the bulletin that afternoon. Every other week at one in the afternoon, like clock work, they marched up the stairs – first Creole, then Nacchianti, then Liepaja. The boys would usually bob their heads in greeting and hurry back to the conference room, sometimes with a big soda from Quiktrip. And Liepaja would follow behind, tall and stately. Collette thought that at a different time, she might have been a queen, such was how she held herself. And then for the next hour and a half, they would fold and staple the bulletin. They would chat and laugh together. At least four or five times, if they had not brought in sodas, the boys would run downstairs to the water cooler, with a “Don’t run!” called to them from Liepaja as they hurried through the hall. Sometimes Collette could hear them snickering on the other basement staircase as they explored around on their way back. They were good kids, and Collette enjoyed having them come. There was something special about seeing a mom and her two sons spend time together and discussing life while they worked. It seemed to be a rather rare occurrence anymore.

Fact – The largest living thing on the face of the Earth is a mushroom underground in Oregon; it measures three and a half miles in diameter.