A brief excerpt on driving Dyna, based on our drive from Cincinnati to Nashville.
When driving Dyna, I can’t ever ‘get in the zone’ like in a car. There are no Lady Gaga top of my lungs sing alongs with choreographed shoulder dancing moves while driving Dyna.
The constant need to be checking blind spots, which happen to be extra large when Dyna is involved really wet blanket my Gaga dance parties.
And then there is the constant barrage of ‘what was that noise?’ – “Oh, typical Dyna creak – pretty sure” – “Or it could be a punctured tire…” – “Oh my god, what if my steer tire blows” – “Remember, push the throttle! Throttle if a steer blows! Oh my god we’ll die! And who will take care of Lucy? What if Lucy is injured in the imminent roll-over which I’m pretty sure is about to happen!” – “… Oh, never mind. Just the dish soap shifting in the dry rack…again.”
Of course there is also the constant need to decipher what type of road kill we’re passing now. Did you know that there are armadillos in Arkansas? Well there are. Or were.
Apparently we have good brakes or something. Because we committed our first screeching halt in the middle of a 4 lane highway on this trip. Because blind spots. There will be no quick merging of Dyna to get out of the way of unnamed materials falling off the truck 400 meters in front of me. Because blindspots. I have no plans to smush small cars (or large cars) that could be in that giant blindspot on my right or left or behind.
So, screeching halt.
We survived. The unnamed material was found to be insulation. We found some of the remnants of the screeching halt episode tucked beneath our tailpipe upon arrival in Nashville. (We stayed at the fairgrounds, as per usual).
Lucy was pretty pissed about the screeching halt incident. She let us know by hiding even after we arrived in Nashville and refusing to talk to us for at least 3 hours.
Insulation stowaways and all, we got to Nashville on a Wednesday afternoon and spent the next 4 days celebrating our friend (and Jake’s kinda-cousin) Kara’s wedding. Also, her husband Dave was involved. I mention that because Dave is mad cool.
If you’re trying to work out how we are related to the big love of a family that is ‘Eade’, well, they are of Fred. Fred is Kara’s grandfather, which only exacerbates her awesomeness. And Fred raised Jake for some of his best years.
The Eade family is Lebanese, and as such, they found a delightful Lebanese restaurant for us all to convene and devour Lebanese delicacies at. Someone in the family even convinced the restaurant owner to make us all some Kibbeh Nayyeh, which is every carnivore’s dream come true in the form of raw meat plopped on a plate. I like Kibbeh Nyah a lot; although I also spent several years of my young childhood attempting to snatch raw ground beef off the counter and plop it in my mouth while my dad turned his back to cook on the stove. My dad didn’t condone this behavior (he went with the ‘you’ll grow worms in your stomach’ explanation). Maybe all those years I was meant to find a man with Lebanese family…
Other than your typical honky-tonk mid day meet-up (is this only typical in Nashville?), the Eade family also introduced us to the game of Euchre – which they take very seriously. They were gentle with us though. Oh, those Eades.
Mostly, we just spent our pre-wedding time in Nashville hanging out, and catching up with an Eade in one human form or another. Eades are good people.
Kara & Dave’s wedding was freaking gorgeous. The food was good. The company was good. The dancing was good. The alcohol was too good.
And somehow I imbibed a little way too much; it’s been a long time since I was near an open bar with pre-set transport home. Bad choice. I personally paid for all those delightful alcoholic drinks for the next 48+hours. Because once you hit 30, the hangovers double in severity and duration. Ever slept in an RV shower?
Yep.
And of course, it wouldn’t be a trip through Nashville if Jake didn’t get sick. After the wedding, poor dude’s Moroccan schnoz (that’s a nose) was all stuffed up and he hacked up both of his lungs for a good three days. That man can burn through tissues at an amazing rate.
After my self-inflicted ills subsided and Jake’s annual Nashville inflicted ills passed, we decided it was time to leave the country music capital. The Eades left a few days prior, Kara and Dave had headed out for their honeymoon, and we have new places to see.
We heard that Little Rock, Arkansas doesn’t have an open bar, so we’re headed there. And with my current alcohol aversion, I’m down to head anywhere without it.