The Rear-view Mirror is in the Back Seat Getting a Rear-view

The Rear-view Mirror is in the Back Seat Getting a Rear-view

Roy and I floated. We floated for days. We floated off the grass strip at Oliver Springs International Airport, just outside of Oak Ridge, TN, but closer to Oliver Springs. We floated up, up and way up over strato-cumulus clouds that were ambitious enough to grow in to cumuli and nimbus. I had no idea that you could file an IFR flight plan to leave a grass strip, but you can. 

The clouds mostly cleared over Arkansas, and in particular over Lake Ouachita, (pronounced WASH-It-Aww) where I was surprised to see a lake below that looked like a smaller, broken up, scattered version of the San Juan Islands. The lake is a huge body of water, where some thousand year old native american spirits tossed shale and quartz across a small inland sea, and the rocks became islands covered with trees and shrubs. Roy has for many years told me that this place is one of the most beautiful he has been to and I can see why. 

The lake is where Roy's family gathered every other year or so for family vacations since about the 1960's. The first generation to gather their children on houseboats for a week of swimming, skiing, family dinners, card playing, rock skipping, and story swapping has left the world, and the second generation gathers with the third, who are young adults and the forth, who are young children and early teens. 

We floated in, on, and around the lake for two days. We shared meals, drank beer, bloody Marys, and vodka infused sweet tea. We floated on blow-up floaty things with drink holders drinking beer. We read books, took naps and got too much sun. It was BLISSFUL. I tried "tubing" which is being pulled behind a power boat way too fast on a large floaty-thing. The youngest member of the clan, 8 year old Gabriel was my tubing buddy. She taught me all the hand signs – thumbs up for go faster, thumbs down for go slower, OK = OK and, waving the hand in front of the throat for I'm done, Stop Please. Gabriel and I were towed slowly. This allowed us time to play mermaid. We were mermaids being pulled by Sea Horses, on a beautiful sea shell. Gabriel looked like a mermaid with her golden blond hair and blue, blue eyes.

On the day it was time to go home, I could not, so we stayed and floated another day. Roy floated on pool noodles. He held my feet while I floated on my back, arms out-stretched under the sky, dotted with clouds, dragonflys, and vultures. In the evening we held hands and watched the sunset from the deck of the boat, while bats flitted by. We fell in love some more again 

Last bit of Sunset

Then we had to leave. My little buddy Gabriel came to see us off. I hugged her tight, and told her I would for sure call her on her birthday, which was the next day.

Gabriel and I

Then we floated off, up and away, across more lakes, and trees, and in to Oaklahoma where grass gathers up and rolls in to hills and trees roll away to ponds and rivers. We floated under dark clouds broken up with shafts of evening sunlight that bent down to wide, square cut, cultivated fields, across Kansas, and in to Nebraska. We floated down, down in to warm evening air, to Nebraska.

We had dinner at Farrs Family restaurant, where the owner has over 2500 cookie jars, and that does not include the christmas cookie jars. It was the most amazing collection of cookie jars I have ever seen. You just never know WHAT you find find exploring this country!

While we were getting fuel, a small private jet pulled up right next to us. I pulled out my camera to take a picture, thinking the scene illustrated our "Rock Star" lifestyle. The passengers in the plane got out and started taking my picture. I waved. They waved back. Then came over to see our little plane. They thought it was the _Coolest_Plane_Ever (rightly so). They told me they left New York a couple hours ago, and would be in San Jose, Ca. that night. I told them that's great, but they travel way too far up to actually _see_ the country. I could tell they had not really thought of it like that. 

Fellow Rock Star Adventurers

The next morning we will hopped back in to our airport courtesy car, back to the plane, and back across country, back home.The car's rear-view mirror is in the floor in the back seat, facing backwards. This trip has been amazing, wonderful, exploring, playing, laughing... floating. We will keep many, many fond memories. But I think we'll leave the looking back to the rear-view mirror, and we will keep looking forward... to Life's Big Adventure!