things to keep from laughing again.
While I focused on the huge hole in the ozone layer, the Mid-East situation, the price of a small loaf of bread, and how the price of oil had skyrocketed during vacation months, Bitty finished her code word conversation and took the lead position in what must have been a really strange looking caravan of vehicles. We traveled down the narrow ribbon of Highway 5, then she turned onto Renick Hill Road. It winds up a rather steep grade, and after turning onto Autry Road, she made so many turns I felt like Alice in the Queen of Hearts’ garden maze. If we’d come upon a croquet court, complete with flamingo mallets and hedgehog balls, it would not have surprised me.
Lately, I often feel much like Alice in Through the Looking Glass . Everyday things have a way of turning round about so that they make no sense. I tell you this only because the rest of our day seemed to go that way.
By the time we’d been driving around the wooded hills for a half hour on a gravel road that felt more like a dried up creek bed, I was ready to reach wherever we were going, if only to stop my intestines from being jarred completely out of my body. If the ruts in the road could make a Mercedes Benz feel like riding in a log truck, I could only imagine how the passengers in Gaynelle's old Cadillac must feel.
Finally Bitty stopped the car. Right in front of us on a small rise sat a rather nice-looking cabin. Pine trees clustered around it, and fallen debris and deep green moss made a soft, thick front yard. In that front yard sat a Volkswagen Beetle. I spared a moment’s awe for the power of German engineering that had enabled that tiny yellow car to get up the road we’d just traveled.
Bitty, however, seemed shocked to see it.
She scrambled for her cell phone. Since Rayna and Gaynelle had parked on each side of us, I thought it a waste of battery. But apparently, we were so far back in the boonies no cell tower was close enough to provide service. Bitty cussed and slammed the phone to the leather seat, then opened her car door.
“Did you tell anyone where we were coming?” she demanded of no one in particular as she stomped toward the cabin.
“How could I when I have no idea where we are?” Rayna answered reasonably. She looked around a moment. “Wait. Didn’t there used to be some kind of lodge near here back in the nineteenth century?”
“Oh, I know what you mean,” said Sandra Dobson, whom I hadn’t seen since our last Diva meeting the month before. “That was over on Beck’s Springs Road, I believe. It was a resort of some kind, wasn’t it? People used to come here all the way from Memphis back before there were cars. Maybe they took the train to the railroad depot, and a horse and buggy from there. I think I saw some old photos in the museum.”
While we leaned up against the cars and chatted about the old resort and whether or not it would really be worth such a long buggy ride up what looked like logging roads and felt like mountain goat tracks, Bitty banged on the cabin door.
“Whoever is in there, you are on private property! You are trespassing! Come out here at once!”
Deelight Tillman looked from the cabin over to me and asked, “Do you know where we are, Trinket?”
I shrugged. “Only Bitty knows, apparently. And she doesn’t sound pleased that someone else beat her here. Whose car is that?”
Rayna looked at it with a slight frown. “I’ve seen that car recently, but for the life of me, I cannot think where.”
Keys rattled, and Bitty shouted that she was coming in and they’d better be getting out. Wherever we were, Bitty had keys to it. The cabin didn’t look old; in fact, it seemed to be fairly new. It had obviously been here a few years, but not so long it would qualify for the historical register or even a new tin roof.
The window glass in the cabin door shuddered when Bitty flung it open, and it banged against the frame with a loud crack. Birds roosting in
While I focused on the huge hole in the ozone layer, the Mid-East situation, the price of a small loaf of bread, and how the price of oil had skyrocketed during vacation months, Bitty finished her code word conversation and took the lead position in what must have been a really strange looking caravan of vehicles. We traveled down the narrow ribbon of Highway 5, then she turned onto Renick Hill Road. It winds up a rather steep grade, and after turning onto Autry Road, she made so many turns I felt like Alice in the Queen of Hearts’ garden maze. If we’d come upon a croquet court, complete with flamingo mallets and hedgehog balls, it would not have surprised me.
Lately, I often feel much like Alice in Through the Looking Glass . Everyday things have a way of turning round about so that they make no sense. I tell you this only because the rest of our day seemed to go that way.
By the time we’d been driving around the wooded hills for a half hour on a gravel road that felt more like a dried up creek bed, I was ready to reach wherever we were going, if only to stop my intestines from being jarred completely out of my body. If the ruts in the road could make a Mercedes Benz feel like riding in a log truck, I could only imagine how the passengers in Gaynelle's old Cadillac must feel.
Finally Bitty stopped the car. Right in front of us on a small rise sat a rather nice-looking cabin. Pine trees clustered around it, and fallen debris and deep green moss made a soft, thick front yard. In that front yard sat a Volkswagen Beetle. I spared a moment’s awe for the power of German engineering that had enabled that tiny yellow car to get up the road we’d just traveled.
Bitty, however, seemed shocked to see it.
She scrambled for her cell phone. Since Rayna and Gaynelle had parked on each side of us, I thought it a waste of battery. But apparently, we were so far back in the boonies no cell tower was close enough to provide service. Bitty cussed and slammed the phone to the leather seat, then opened her car door.
“Did you tell anyone where we were coming?” she demanded of no one in particular as she stomped toward the cabin.
“How could I when I have no idea where we are?” Rayna answered reasonably. She looked around a moment. “Wait. Didn’t there used to be some kind of lodge near here back in the nineteenth century?”
“Oh, I know what you mean,” said Sandra Dobson, whom I hadn’t seen since our last Diva meeting the month before. “That was over on Beck’s Springs Road, I believe. It was a resort of some kind, wasn’t it? People used to come here all the way from Memphis back before there were cars. Maybe they took the train to the railroad depot, and a horse and buggy from there. I think I saw some old photos in the museum.”
While we leaned up against the cars and chatted about the old resort and whether or not it would really be worth such a long buggy ride up what looked like logging roads and felt like mountain goat tracks, Bitty banged on the cabin door.
“Whoever is in there, you are on private property! You are trespassing! Come out here at once!”
Deelight Tillman looked from the cabin over to me and asked, “Do you know where we are, Trinket?”
I shrugged. “Only Bitty knows, apparently. And she doesn’t sound pleased that someone else beat her here. Whose car is that?”
Rayna looked at it with a slight frown. “I’ve seen that car recently, but for the life of me, I cannot think where.”
Keys rattled, and Bitty shouted that she was coming in and they’d better be getting out. Wherever we were, Bitty had keys to it. The cabin didn’t look old; in fact, it seemed to be fairly new. It had obviously been here a few years, but not so long it would qualify for the historical register or even a new tin roof.
The window glass in the cabin door shuddered when Bitty flung it open, and it banged against the frame with a loud crack. Birds roosting in
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