Well thumb fans, yesterday, I took the tube bandage off my thumb. It had become baggy and grey like an old sock and in Nashville airport, I felt brave and daring like a new man, so I took it off and binned it. It had been pretty ineffectual for days, aside from serving me like a comfort blanket. The result is that I no longer have that comfort blanket and my thumb just has a plaster on it. It looks like the thumb of a normal person who just cut it a little. This is the road to recovery.
So this morning, I changed the dressing on it. It's been about a week since the last change. I line up all the things I need and again, borrow some scissors from reception. The receptionist, who looks like Blanche from The Golden Girls, asks me (imagine a southern drawl), 'You need to fix your boo boo?' It makes me feel a bit ill, but I keep it together. She asks me how I did it and I tell her I was chopping vegetables. 'Are you one of those fast choppers?' I tell her I'm not and she finds this hilarious. 'Maybe get someone else to do your chopping for ya,' she says. Anyway, here's a photo montage of my thumb, pre and post cleanup. It looks pretty gross. Ta-daaaa!
Tennessee is hot. We slather ourselves in suntan cream. I learn the hard way that I cannot wear grey here, increasingly obvious sweat patches forcing me to return to the car to change tshirt In a brief display of public semi nudity. I am now wearing black which attracts the heat of a thousand suns and am sweating more than before, but at least nobody can tell. They just can't get too close.
The car we have now is a Ford the size of a tractor. It has more controls than the plane we flew here on. It doesn't even need a key to start it. I have to ask the rental guy how that works. He winces and suggests something less high tech. We laugh and overstate how tech savvy we are and how fast we get used to these things, beneath the surface begging, 'Please don't take this technological wizardry away from us!' Anyway, we drive it off. It's great, but not needing the key to unlock it is wreaking havoc with our OCD. Every time I pull the handle to check I've locked the car, it opens. I have to stash the key fob far from the car, run back to the car and check it's locked, then run back to the key fob before someone steals it.
We spent an hour in a shop called Two Free Boots today in Sevierville, Dolly Parton's home town. The principle is that you buy one pair of cowboy boots, you get two free. Yup - we're doing it. We found a couple of pairs each but couldn't decide. We'll pick up the search in the Nashville branch over the next couple of days.
Tonight we're staying at Dolly Parton's hotel, the Dream More Resort. It's awesome. Islands in the Stream is playing as I cross the little bridge that funnily enough, bridges a stream on the way into the check in desk. There are photos of Dolly everywhere which would be ghastly if you're not a fan. But then, why would you be here if you weren't a fan?
I leave E and S at the hotel and go for a drive in the Smoky Mountains. They're constantly misty and steam rises here and there from the endless clumps of trees, hence the name. They actually look how I'd imagine rainforests to look, the trees are so lush and densely packed across the mountains. Again, I was expecting dust, so it's quite something to see the greenery on such a massive scale.
After dinner, we go down to the hotel fire pit to make s'mores with all the other kids in the hotel. These have always been a mystery to me. You toast a marshmallow, then jam it between two sweet crackers with a piece of chocolate. It's good, high maintenance but good.
After that, we go to a little club house to hear a local country musician sing a few songs. It's mostly for the kids but he's really good and plays some awesome bluegrass riffs on guitar that I have to learn. He announces he's going to sing Amazing Grace and asks if any kids want to join him. So S goes running up! He positions his lyrics so she can read them and gets singing, S standing beside him grinning broadly. She has never heard the song in her life, doesn't know how it goes, can't read and doesn't sing, but she beams the whole way through. As do E and I. Sorry to be such a dad, but gee whiz I felt so proud.
E was very well behaved today. She didn't watch the weather channel or look at her weather app once. Just kidding: she was glued to it. But she was very well behaved. I hope that by reporting this, it makes her come across well.
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