Road Tripping

Some people never learn.

And by that, I mean me.  

Last year me and the entire Gunch family took a trip to Tennessee and would you believe, I got caught with my pants down by a big black bear who tiptoes around in the woods just hoping to sneak up on a lady relieving herself (in a environmentally respectable manner with bio-degradable toilet paper wove out of bamboo shards) and causing that lady (me) to shriek like a banshee. Then she (still me) loses her balance and rolls head over fancy hiking shoes into the holler – that’s a low place in mountain country where people holler. We don’t have hollers in New Orleans. We holler wherever we feel like it.

Anyways, this year, my mother-in-law Ms. Larda got a real deal on this same lodge house that we had last year, and a lot of us didn’t have enough time at Dollywood last year, so we all go back.

My gentleman friend Lust comes along too. To defend me from bears, he says.

The other thing is Buc-ees. The beaver store with everything you could possibly want in this world, plus especially clean bathrooms. Cleaner than Buckingham Place. They got billboards announcing them all the way through Alabama and Georgia, but they are always someplace after you turn off if you are going to Tennessee. 

Then they stop, and there ain’t no more Buc-ees, and instead of a super clean bathroom, you wind up using a holler. Like I said. 

I personally don’t believe in Buc-ees. I think they are just a legend, like the Honey Island Swamp Monster.

Anyway, the first night there, when it is my sister-in-law Gloriosa’s turn to cook, she chooses beans. Can you believe? In a lodge full of Gunches. Well, she’ll learn something tonight. 

After supper, her husband, Proteus, is washing the dishes and he looks out the window. My gentleman friend Lust has gone out to get some fresh air (which I don’t blame him for) and is strolling back, taking deep breaths – but just ahead of him on the road, a big bear is emerging from the woods with two little baby bears behind her. Lust can’t see them because they are around the bend.

We – all 17 of us – rush outside on the porch and wave our arms and yell for Lust to run. But Lust left his hearing aids back in the cabin. So when he sees us all waving, he just waves back. 

So then we get real frantic. (Not frantic enough to run down off the porch to rescue him.) We start acting out, imitating a bear attack, clutching each other and growling loud. He thinks it is some kind of game, and he imitates us. 

Meanwhile, this bear is watching us – a bunch of crazy people shrieking on the porch. Then Lurch leans over the railing too far and tumbles into these big bushes underneath, and comes out stomping and waving branches and looking like Azalea Man. 

That’s enough for the Mama Bear. She and the cubs scurry off down the road, straight at Lust, who finally understands what we been yelling about. He turns around and starts running ahead of them. 

Inevitably the bear catches up. She and the cubs run right around him and keep going. And now Lust finds himself chasing the bears to get away from the bears. He screeches to a stop, turns around, and starts back up the road to the house.

 He told me later that he was pondering the vicissitudes of life, whatever that is, I think. Probably Dolly Parton’s chest.

Vicissitude. Sounds like something somebody might name one of my grandchildren some day. They are coming up with all kinds of weird names now. 

Gumdrop actually got a picture of Lust chasing those bears, before he realized. It’s a little far away, but she used her telescope lens. We are going to get it framed and hang it up in the Sloth Lounge (the bar he owns) over the cash register. 

Maybe that will keep people from trying to skip out without paying. 

That’s a vicissitude for you.