Homeward bound, but not for long.

I'm sitting in the Columbia airport shell-shocked after the family vacation.  Lots of people (lots of kids!) in a small space.  Kind of intense.
I did get to tag the highest peak in South Carolina (Mt. Sassafrass).


View Larger Map

Which was largely uneventful, and I'm not even sure if I was on the actual summit, since there was a paved cul-de-sac rather than any sort of distinct summit.  Which I did actually have to hike to, since the public road was blocked about 100 feet short of the cul-de-sac. Here is the public road:

Kind of scary, no?

See the gate in the background? I had to hike to the top from there. It was a long and grueling 100 feet.  I was worried about altitude sickness. So there.

The best part of the drive was that I could be alone for a few hours, even though I was in backwoods South Carolina, which can be scary.  I played Lady Gaga for protection.  Which seemed to work, because even though I saw this at the summit:

I was not bothered by the flying monkeys.  I think most of the flying monkeys are back in California anyway. Or at least their sister species, the rock monkeys are in CA.

The other best part of the outing was that I saw lots of cool flowers, including this terrestrial orchid:

 Platanthera ciliaris

Carolina lilies (state flower of North Carolina):

Lilium michauxii

Of course, lots of mushrooms!  So many mushrooms:

And some more cool flowers:

So that was Thursday. Well, and then I got drunk with my cousins, got high with them, we cried a little bit, and my Dad told me about when he dropped acid (I'd already been born!).

Flash forward to a slightly hungover Friday morning.  I played in the lake with Gracie, while she sang the boing boing song.  This had the added bonus of getting me away from the toddlers, who were driving me bats.  Seriously. BATS.

We finished the puzzle (despite Gracie and Sean saying "you will never ever finish this, there are like a billion pieces. It's impossible.")

Then a thunder and lightning storm hit, and a bolt of lightning struck the front yard and blew out two transformers.  No power, no a/c. So I decided to help get the boat back on the trailer to take back to Columbia.

So Uncle Mike and Jennie and I loaded up the boat and were on our way to the public boat landing to meet my parents we ran out of gas.  Whoops. Fortunately a nice family rescued us and towed us to the marina so we could fill up.  But the boat broke somehow and we couldn't start it.  We had every Good Old Boy in sight trying to figure out how to start the damn boat. Meanwhile my Dad was on his cell telling us to pour gas down into the carburator. Whatever. As it turned out, breaking down near the marina was actually a great stroke of luck because not only was there another boat landing, but there was a tiki bar.  So we could get drunk and eat free chips while my parents found their way to the marina. And the toddlers were still back at the house! Mwah hahahhaaa!

The power eventually came back on around midnight, and fortunately southerners know how to make their a/c as strong as their moonshine, so the house cooled off pretty quickly.

I'm glad to be in the airport, and I'm glad to be heading back to California.  There are better road signs there.  Trust.

So tonight Karrigan picks me up, then I sleep, wake up, shop for Silver King Creek, pack up the car and drive to Coleville to Little Antelope Pack Station.  Monday morning we are off the Connell's Cow Camp/Upper Fish Valley to sample the fish for a post-doc.  Should be a lot of fun. So so psyched to get on the plane (my mom got me a first class ticket!!) and sleep.

I'll leave you with a photo of some road signs near our rental house.  Never made it to World of Energy, but it sounds SICK (Duke power company!).  I didn't make it to the Church of God of Prophecy either.  There's always next time.