One Hot Trip

We drove to Portland on Tuesday to use the "Park and Ride" at the Radisson for our 6 a.m. flight to Dallas May 23─3 hours and 45 minutes in the air, a 3 hour layover, then an hour and 40 minute hop to Huntsville to see kids and grandkids and the new house, a lovely brick with wood floors, lots of rooms and bathrooms, enough space for kids and guests.

Fortunately, it has two air conditioning systems: the temperature when we arrived was in the high 80s.

A major reason for visiting at this time was to see Matthew in Clowns, a major production for sixth graders at his school , the last performance the next morning.  Cast call was at 7:30 so Laurel early helped him get started on face paint which he finished himself,

drove him to school, then returned to pick us up for the performance, a musical review featuring most of the students in the top three grades.

After, as a reward, we stopped at Starbucks for freezes, then drove back to the house.  The temperature was in the low 90s, nothing to faze Bamans, an oven for Oregonians.

Friday, we shopped at several antique malls, sprinting from air conditioned car to air conditioned building, but the only thing that tempted was a minuscule trowel and rake, sterling handles and elephant ivory, tools for a miniature Zen rock garden; the price was gigantic.  Deb wants to add that we visited the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro, a final destination for luggage from airlines and bus services that cannot be reunited with owners, a conglomeration of bags, clothes, shoes, electronic devices and miscellaneous stuff, of which the most interesting is hung on the walls and not for sale: a 10-foot dungchen (Tibetan long horn), a 4-foot wide Benin bronze plaque, an African headdress.

We kayaked a 3-hour stretch of the Flint River, which flows near Huntsville between tree-covered bluffs and flatland into the Tennessee River, mostly slow moving but with a few fast spots for added interest.

We saw a heron, two raccoons, and heard birds we could not identify.

We visited Cathedral Cavern State Park, not far from Huntsville, and waited for the guide at the entrance, where the temperature was at least 20 degrees cooler than at the lodge 50 yards away.

 The cavern has a number of features to recommend it:  a constant temperature of 57-60 degrees─nice; the widest entrance of any commercial cave in the world, 25 feet tall by 128 feet wide;

the largest column in the world (named Goliath, 45 feet tall, 243 feet in circumference); and about two miles of an 8-foot-wide concrete walkway to view everything.

In 1995, Disney Studios shot the cave scenes in Tom and Huck here.

An area is set aside for weddings; minister, bride and groom stand on sand, guests stay on the path.

 We visited the Space and Rocket Center to see the Mammoths and Mastodons exhibition, created by the Field Museum in Chicago, a collection of fossils, artifacts, interactive exhibits and a replica of the most complete baby mammoth ever found, thought to have drowned in Siberia when a month old, frozen for 40,000 years.

And given the heat, we spent a lot of time in the new home:  Laurel cooked crêpes one morning.  David grilled yummy steaks at night.  I spent time with Matthew as he built Lego fire trucks.

As the sun went down, we sat on the second floor deck and enjoyed the view.

Wednesday morning, we rose about 3 a.m. (Oregon time) to catch the early flight to Dallas, looking forward to a leisurely breakfast during our 4-hour layover, but thunderstorms shut down DFW, a 2-hour flight turned into 6 hours including an hour or so refueling in Abilene, a mile sprint in the DFW terminal, and 4 hours later we land at PDX for the drive home.  Coolness.