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Sunday morning of our trip brought us to Calvary Church in Charlotte for the Sunday morning service. It is Becky’s folks’ church, and she attended and was an intern there while in college. Then in 1998 we got married in the chapel there… so I guess we have a little history at the church. :-) We got there early so Becky could see a few people she hasn’t seen in a while… and of course she could show off the girls.

After church we pigged out on Sonny’s BBQ, which has some phenomenal sweet tea. Then it was back to Waxhaw for an afternoon nap, and then the traditional Christmas Eve feast with Becky’s folks. Then it was off to bed for the girls as we packed up to head to Faith & Ernie’s for Christmas…

Day 3 was another travel day; Nashville, TN to Waxhaw, NC. It doesn’t look that long on the map, but it winds through the mountains a good bit, which makes it longer. It’s a very pretty drive.

We got packed up and left the Opryland resort about 8:30. Taking I-40 east, we headed through Knoxville and then wound our way through the mountains to Asheville, NC. It was rainy and foggy all day, which made for some beautiful views of clouds hanging low in the mountain valleys, but it also made for some difficult driving. Still, we made it to Charlotte in time for supper and then drove the 40 minutes on to Waxhaw to see Becky’s folks.

We hung out at their apartment for a little while and had some dessert (Laura just loves her ice cream!), then they took us over to the little JAARS apartment that we’re staying in. The JAARS headquarters here actually is set up with several lodges and apartments to house folks that come in for training and the like. They’re also available for visitors, which works quite well for us. We’re actually in an apartment that has two bedrooms, one bath, living room, dining room, and small kitchen. Laura slept in a real twin-sized bed, a real step up from her toddler bed at home. She did really well. It’s nice to have a little home-away-from-home where we can just settle down at night. (It even has DSL so I can get my internet fix!)

Fortunately we won’t be doing much more driving for a day or two; Sunday we’ll head into Charlotte for church, then Monday we head up to Conover to visit Ernie, Faith, and Brandy for Christmas. I’ll try to keep my blog posts up-to-date since I know some of my family will be reading them while they’re together in Chicago at Ryan’s place. Hi guys!

Day 2 of our Christmas trip landed us in Nashville. Becky’s brother Bob and his wife Holly and daughter Taylor live just south of town. Holly works for Gaylord Entertainment, which operates the massive Opryland Resort there in northeast Nashville. As such, she gets a phenomenal discount rate for rooms in the hotel, and we took full advantage of that to stay there for two nights.

We slept in (a necessity after staying up ’til midnight) and then went with Bobby and Taylor to a local Cracker Barrel for breakfast. Then it was back to the resort and we started walking around. The place is amazing. They have two domed areas with multiple levels of attractions, shows, shops, and gardens. One has an indoor river with boat tours! Bob had lined up a boat tour for us and off we went.

At lunchtime I was able to get together with Andy Osenga to grab lunch. He was getting ready to record some background vocals for another guy that afternoon, and they were heading out for lunch first. I joined them for lunch at a local Irish pub-type establishment (I call it that knowing that Ryan would be happy to tell me how different a true Irish pub is from that place!), then went back to the studio and hung out for a while while Andy recorded. Mitch Dean (who has worked on albums for Jars of Clay, among others) was doing the recording, and it was an education for me to see just how the process works. It was difficult, if not impossible, to resist the geek appeal of all that sound recording and editing gear, and that doesn’t even begin to address the enjoyment I had as a musician seeing how songs get sculpted into a finished product.

I headed back to the resort mid-afternoon and we walked around and saw more of the sights. The place is just designed to soak your money out of you. They have a Chick-Fil-A inside one of the domes. The price for a basic CFA sandwich? $6. At a normal CFA, it costs about $2.50. Add on the $10/day to park, the add-ons for the extras in your room, and I know I couldn’t afford to stay there at normal prices. Oh, a word about the room we stayed in. It was actually a three-room suite, two bedrooms, each with two double beds, and then a connecting sitting room that was huge; perhaps 20 x 30 feet. Each room had windows that opened out to the dome with the river, so you could hear rushing water all night. Amazing. Bob said it usually runs about $550/night. He got it for just a tiny percentage of that price, I’m sure.

That night after Holly got off work we went and saw the “Ice” show right next door; it was a big building full of ice sculptures, and included two big ice slides! They issued you large coats at the door; the single-degree temps inside were in stark contrast to the 60-degree temps outside. Laura was a bit scared, but went down one of the slides. Unfortunately, the picture didn’t come out. There was an amazing ice nativity scene, of course an igloo, a bear ice fishing, a train… very cool stuff. (Pun intended.)

Finally, we went over to the massive shopping mall next to the resort to grab dinner. We ate at the Rain Forest Cafe, which has a waterfall, massive aquariums, animatronic elephants and apes, simulated thunderstorms, the whole bit. The food was pretty decent, too. We finally made it back to our room and collapsed into bed. Well, I guess I collapsed; Becky went down with Bob to hang out for a while and listen to a band.

I’ll just add the rest of the pictures here at the end; the descriptions on Flickr will fill in any info you need.

At least it sure feels that way.

Day 1 of our little Christmas adventure turned out to be a bit more adventurous than we had hoped. I had the van all packed Tuesday night, and Wednesday morning we were up early and ready to take off. About 7:15 I went out to start the van to get it warmed up, and click-click-click-click-click-click-click. Wouldn’t start. Nada. Finally got it jump-started, and not knowing what might be wrong, took it down to the mechanic who managed to sneak it in. After checking things over, he diagnosed a weak battery, so we had it replaced and were finally on our way about 3 hours behind schedule.

After one false start (forgot the phone chargers at home, go back 4 miles to get them), we were on our way south. Actually more east first, through eastern Iowa and Illinois. I think we managed to take one of the slowest routes to Nashville. It looks straight enough on the map, but take a little hint from me and Messrs. Rand and McNally: the blue roads travel faster than the orange roads. Blue roads don’t have stoplights. Blue roads don’t force you to slow down to 30 mph for small towns. I will not forget this lesson.

We stopped at a Cracker Barrel somewhere in Illinois for lunch, and at an Arby’s in Vincennes, IN for supper. We ended up getting to Nashville about 10:15 pm. We are staying at the Opryland resort, which is just amazing. I’ll post more about it tomorrow, along with lots of pics.

The long-awaited Christmas break is finally here! Tonight we’re loading the van, and tomorrow morning we head out bright and early for our Christmas visit to see Becky’s family in Tennessee and North Carolina.

Wednesday will take us to Nashville. We’ll spend all day Thursday there with her brother Bobby and his family, then Friday morning we’ll take off for North Carolina. We’ll spend the next several days alternating between Becky’s folks’ place in Waxhaw and her sister’s place in Conover. We’ll meet some weird internet friends on Thursday night in Charlotte, then Friday morning we head back home, taking two days to get back to Iowa. At the moment we’re planning on overnighting in Dayton, OH on the way back.

It’ll be good to get away from work for a couple of weeks, spend some major time with Becky and the girls, see some of her family that we haven’t seen in a long time. Hey, I’ll probably post more often over the next two weeks than I usually do - lots of good chances to take pictures and lots of new stories to tell.

“over the river and through the woods…” :-)