Day in the Life 12881: Space City, Unexpected but brief trips, Sad but important conversations with my mom

BLOT: (04 Sep 2012 - 10:38:48 AM)

Day in the Life 12881: Space City, Unexpected but brief trips, Sad but important conversations with my mom

I found an article about Space City, the 1960's would-be theme park dedicated to the space program right outside of Huntsville, and why it never was and thought it might be fun to see the sign. This one:

Something missing from that picture and the first article I read is when that picture was taken or where it was taken and whether or not the sign is still there. I ended up finding an article detailing much more of the history, the intended layout, the aftermath, and the failings of Space City published earlier on al.com, and that prior article [note: read second by me, in a timey-wimey bit] included the "Space City sign on Highway 20" caption to the picture, though again lacks a date or more precise location. It also seems to be on a dirt road. Looking at the Wikipedia entry for Alabama State Route 20, that's a wide swath of places that might have dirtroads off of them.

What this means for this journal entry starts on Saturday afternoon. I was planning on cooking a lasagna, and found the first article and thought it might be fun to run out and see that sign—we had not found the second article yet, and so was merely going by the Lady Ann Lake reference—before swinging by Publix to pick up a lasagna pan and a pound of tofu. We knew the rough location of Lady Ann Lake [though we still had to get directions at a gas station to find which exact road to turn down] but had no luck, obviously, finding the sign since wherever that sign is, it is not at the old site. Still, we got to see a lot of nice houses and various people doing lawn work, so it wasn't a complete loss, just kind of one.

Except, in the middle of walking out to the car to go and see this sign, a crazy idea had formed. Sarah had a bit of wanderlust this past weekend—Labor Day brings it out in people—and we had a lack of plans and not a whole lot of funds, but what occurred to me was that generally speaking, road trips could be cheap as long as we just went some place and didn't sweat the details but didn't overindulge as is vacation standard. My original wild idea was to head to the Atlantic ocean, via South Carolina, but looking at the map [note: we bought this map after starting the trip] made it pretty obvious that it would require more overal distance than a simple trip to the Gulf, and since it as about 5pm CST, then it would be 6pm coastal to start and 6-7 hours would put us there past midnight their time. And then there would be a 6-7 hour trip back, and that would have been rough. We had simply left to do two relatively quick things, meaning that we hadn't fed the cat, hadn't turned off the lights or even, as it were, the TV. The dishwasher was open and in the process of being emptied. The idea of getting back the next morning was a bit weird and borderline impossible, but Sarah mentioned Chattanooga and we went for it.

It was a lot of fun. We just had on the kind of clothes we might wear for a brief outing, and had no road trip supplies nor nothing we might have brought on a longer trip, but it worked. We got to Chattanooga about 8:45pm Eastern, which made the chances of getting good food a bit harsh. We had lucked up and found a map of local eateries on the way into town, which included a basic map of the place—neither Sarah nor I had any clue about how the town was laid out—but the place we wanted to eat at was closed. In fact, the place that we did eat, Taziki's on Market Street, was effectively closing when we went in but they let us order. Afterwards, we walked around the Market/4th-6th area which was kind of like walking the divide between a bunch of drunk bros to hipsters-on-bikes to a homeless/urban vibe. We got to see butch lesbians with cigarettes and beer bottles down at 4th, and then by 6th there was a quite mad, old homeless woman whose too-white hair was like curled wool off the top of her head. About a street down, there was some movie being projected on a building's wall, much like Bring Popcorn, but I could not make out the event or what the movie was. It didn't really look safe, the area, but it had a much better vibe than its appearances. At worst the people on the street were nearly entirely apathetic to us. Which is just fine.

After a couple of hours on the road, and only about 45 minutes there, we got back in the car and headed on home. Which was much like the trip in except that it was more dead (now about 10pm Eastern). We stopped off to get ice cream, came home, and it was a great success. Part of me is sad that we did not go to the Atlantic, but that is ok. We'll save that impromptu trip for another time.

A bittersweet tinge to the whole thing came from talking (actually, texting) my mom about our trip. She and my father would do similar things when they lived in Ohio. They would just get in the car and travel down to South Alabama to visit their family. The trips were so on-the-fly that my mom would often cook something or otherwise pack something to eat while they were getting ready. I guess they would take a tent and turn it into a camping trip in the middle to keep costs down. She was talking about how she could still remember, one morning, cooking bacon and eggs by a mountain stream somewhere in West Virginia. At which piont she teared up at the memory and talked about she missed by dad. And it occurred to me that a silly little moment, cooking breakfast out in the woods the night after an impromptu road trip, could end up meaning so much as a memory after a husband or wife of 50 years has gone, and that really, it's best to be a little bit unpredictable. Because breaking the routine is where the best memories are formed, and we'll all be dead soon and the memories of us will probably be all that really matters.

Me in 2012

OTHER BLOTS THIS MONTH: September 2012