NOVEMBER 2009 -
the journey
The fact is, I don’t like to ask for directions.
I know all the so-called jokes about men and their unwillingness to stop to ask for help in getting from one place to another, but the truth is, it’s not a joke. It makes me feel dumb, incapable, unauthorized, unworthy. The thing is, in most cases, I have tools available to me that should make asking for directions an obsolete issue. There are GPS systems, before that there was Mapquest and before that Atlases and before that maps. It’s not like God has not provided. And yet, as recently as Thanksgiving, I found myself wandering endless miles of back roads without a clue as to where I was or how to get back to civilization. Well, that’s not entirely true.
I actually have a pretty good sense of direction. I know Compass Rose, the problem is that roads are also built by men, at least the early ones were. So, the road that is called west, may in fact travel north. Oh, it will eventually take you west, but that’s after it takes you north. So, what should be a 30 minute drive is a 2-hour ramble. Much of the time, I don’t mind the rambles. They give me much-needed quiet time, and I learn about places I never knew existed. Sometimes, though, they just give me headaches.
For Thanksgiving 2007 my family did something entirely different than ever before. We dispensed with tradition–what there was of it, and went on Thanksgiving vacation to a cabin in the mountains. I used Mapquest to get directions to the cabin, and those directions were right on the money. What Mapquest could not tell me was that half a million other people had the same idea. So, we all got away from it all together.
thanksgiving at the old mill
There was a 3-hour wait to get Thanksgiving dinner at The Old Mill–not that that wasn't nearly as good as what I remember eating at Bigmama’s house growing up. The Thanksgiving meal was always supposed to be lunch but never really happened until 3 or 4. I’ve had better green beans, and I didn’t know that ambrosia was considered a Thanksgiving classic. The restaurant served stuffing instead of dressing, and it had way too much sage in it. I found that distressing, but not because I’m a big fan of dressing. Honestly, I don’t care too much for either. I just thought this place was celebrating Southern Culture, and I’ve always thought of stuffing as a rather Northern way of doing Thanksgiving.
On top of everything else, they didn’t let you take any of the food home with you. What’s Thanksgiving without leftovers? The next night we set out for another restaurant only to discover that the other 499,996 people who had traveled to their mountain getaways had also eaten at the Old Mill and also did not have leftovers and, so, were in need of something to eat the day after Thanksgiving. It became apparent that the only way were going to get to eat was to pay a hefty price for the food and be forced to watch either a mediocre magician, animated black bears in a Christmas-inspired song-and-dance number or shade-tree mechanic attempt to announce Jesus’s impending birth at the Miracle Theater.
That was OK; we had planned ahead. We had deli turkey, a can of cranberry sauce (beggars can’t be choosers, you know), some Country Crock sweet potatoes and some two-day-old biscuits from a stop at Cracker Barrel on the way up. We sat in our cabin, set the timer on the fireplace for the full sixty minute flame show and watched a Christmas movie on the TV. The food was good. The cabin was warm, and the movie wasn’t too shabby either. The next day, the second day after Thanksgiving, we were supposed to go home, but when we saw some of the mountains had white tops, we decided to drive up into the Smokies to see the snow. Now, I’m familiar with that route, so no GPS was needed.
We were rewarded with a scene right out of Narnia: icicles covering sheer rock faces, naked tree branches delicate and white and evergreens flocked in icy splendor. We took pictures, broke off a couple of icicles to crunch and melt in our mouths and headed on. We decided not to go home immediately, but instead to go to Biltmore, America’s largest house, for the Christmas candlelight tour. The signs in Pigeon Forge had said the house was just 90 minutes away. I had already driven over the Smokies and that had taken way more than 90 minutes. The only directions I could find were on a brochure. One of the options was from the Great Smoky Mountain Parkway, a lovely, but curvy ride along the mountain ridge that got us to Biltmore just in time. It was worth the wait.
Christmas Spirit at Biltmore
From the minute I heard the choir singing in the Winter Garden, I knew we had made the right decision. The mansion, or should I say castle, was decked out in greenery and ribbons with shiny glass balls and poinsettias everywhere. My son was mesmerized by the huge fire places, the 1,700-pound chandelier held up by a single bolt and the secret passage way behind the fireplace in the library. My daughter couldn’t get over the bathrooms. I had to get on to her about lifting one of the privy lids. She also wanted to know if she somehow fell from the third-story landing of the house would I race to the bottom to catch her and save her. I have no idea where that thought came from, but of course, being the valiant dad that I am, I said yes.
When we finished our tour, we left with a bit of warmth in our hearts. Our shuttle driver made small talk, and we and our fellow passengers noted that sleet had begun to fall. The notion of what some of us might do if we got caught in the weather led one lady and her family members to take stock of what food might already be in their car. They had potato chips, some water and a couple of other items. I added that we had some Cheese-Its and some peanuts. Autumn told everyone this could be our Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. “They had popcorn and toast,” she said. We all laughed and bid each other Merry Christmas as we went to our cars.
the ride home
The ride home was, by my best estimation, supposed to take about 5-hours. I missed it by a hundred miles or so. I followed signs that directed me to Atlanta. That as simple enough, but after a while, I began to doubt my decision. It was taking way too long to see familiar names. Finally, I decided to take the next road I knew would go west, toward home. Both Ga 52 and Ga. 53 go west, and 52 came first, so I took it. The only problem is, 52 is one of those old roads. It goes west, but only after jogging severely to the north. We went back up and down mountains and around steep curves. I didn't recognize anything familiar, and it was taking far too long to get home. Finally, in the early morning hours, my wife offered to relieve me of driving duties. By then we were close to Fort Mountain, and I knew how to get home from there. I gave my wife directions, and slept the rest of the way.
Home could not have been a more welcome site when we arrived. The next morning I checked Mapquest again to see where I had gone wrong. I saw that my instincts were pretty good, but that if I had had knowledge, something in my hand, a road map, an Atlas, Mapquest directions or a GPS, I could have made a couple of better choices that probably would have shaved an hour or more off my drive.
the lesson
That’s when it hit me. God gives us the tools we need to make it through this life. It’s not His fault if we don’t follow them or keep them with us. We can waste a lot of time wandering on our own, thinking we’re heading in the right direction when there is a better way. And, all too often, we discover the better way, after we’ve already made it to our destination, tired, hungry and frustrated by the journey. I said a prayer of Thanksgiving, thankful that we made it home safely, that the day before had been so wonder–filled with snow and Christmas, and asked God to help me not to dwell on the wrong-turn journey, but to focus on the positive and what I could change in the future. He did that for me, and I did my part… I asked my wife for an Atlas for Christmas.
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