Finding Direction: The Wind Vane Chronicles

[Note:  Family - gotta love 'em!  We had a fabulous time on this trip.  And, what fun all along the way riding together - eight, then nine, of us - in a 15 passenger van.  Enjoy some of the highlights of our five days together.]

At the end of the last episode of the Andrews’ siblings & spouses “Arkansas Memories Tour of 2009″  (see here) the eight of us were squeezing in the rented 15 passenger van at a hotel outside Memphis to head up to northern Arkansas.

It was high noon.  Saturday, October 31.  A leisurely four hour, 11 minute drive .  (Yeah . . . right.)

After heavy storms all afternoon the day before coming up to Memphis from Picayune, the sun was beaming down on bright fall trees from a cloudless blue sky.  The weather was perfect – in the mid-60s – and the forecast for the next four days was the same.

Everyone had eaten breakfast at the hot breakfast buffet at the hotel, but it was lunch time.  So, we had no more than gotten in the van when voices from behind me began calling out, “When are we going to stop to eat?”

I was in the seat directly behind Tom, who was the sole driver on the trip, and the un-designated, but ex facto go between from the back of the van to him.  You see – in fact, see here:

As you can see, Tom’s brother, Jimmy, spent a great deal of the time on the road doing what he does best – napping.  Dickie, next to me, wears two hearing aids and most of conversations totally pass him by.

Tom wears two hearing aids, as well, and with the road noise and high backs on the front seats, had a hard time hearing much from the two rows of seats behind me (plus engaged in selective tuning out), so guess who that left as the interpreter/conveyor of “urgent” messages?  Moi.

The incessant loud clamoring kind requests began pouring in.

“Tommy, I’m too hot.”

“Tommy, I’m too cold.”

“Tommy, the air is in my face.”

“Tommy, the heat is on and it’s on my feet.”

“Tommy, I’m hungry.”

“Tommy, I’m getting motion sickness.

“Tommy, I need to stop at Walmart.”

“Tommy, I need to go to the bathroom.”

“Tommy, when are we ever stopping for lunch – I need to eat.”

*Tommy?  Will there be places to shop along the way?”

All of the AC/heat controls were on the upper panel in front.  Tom turned the air control situation over to his co-pilot, Jim, to deflect some of the “heat” from the back, but his co-pilot never could figure out all of the knobs.  I figured them out, but could not reach them.

As for the rest – we breezed around Memphis on I-40, crossed the might Mississippi into Arkansas and drove for 45 minutes without seeing one place to stop to eat lunch, use the bathroom, or wander through a Walmart.

What?  Arkansas, the center of the world, the mecca for Walmart and there were not Super Walmarts or even little old ones on every corner of every little village?  What is Wally World coming to?

But, I digress.

The lack of accoutrements did not stop the requests.  Me finally scoping out a Cracker Barrel billboard along the very rural I-40 nearly 45 minutes on the road did.  I just casually called out “Cracker Barrel ahead” and the piranhas the now weak voices from lack of sustenance picked up the call.

An hour and a half later, several needs had been grandly fulfilled.  The need to eat, to use the bathrooms (both going in and coming back out) and to engage in shopping.

The remaining most urgent one was to find a Wally World so as to (1) get some anti-nausea medicine and to (2) buy a step stool so all us old-timers could climb up on to the very high step into the van.  The tip and directions for how to get to the closest one given by our waiter proved to be a fruitless, time-consuming 30 minute tour of railroad tracks, creeks and bumpy side roads leading past our exit onto I-59.  Thus, we had to back track to go forward again.

We finally stopped by a drugstore (next to the Cracker Barrel we’d left more than 30 minutes before) before leaving this tiny burg to get the anti-nausea medicine.  By now it was way after 2 p.m. and we were not even an hour out of Memphis.  The main goal now was to find a Walmart, where we could get a step stool.  Hawkeyes searched the passing landscape hopelessly.

The AC/heat problems continued, Jim napped, Tom zoned and I listened.  It was to be another hour and more before we found a big Super Walmart.  It was on the other side of the road, of course, which could only be reached by a very complicated looping drive off, up over a bridge, back, then back again.  The GPS was going bonkers.

Plus, it was a sunny Saturday afternoon – Oct. 31 – in Arkansas – the huge parking lot was overflowing – 75% of the people and kids were in full costume for Halloween – most of us couldn’t get out of the van again until a stool was purchased – everyone needed a bathroom break – and there were no parking places for a 15 passenger van, even with a disabled card hanging from the rearview mirror.

To be continued . . .

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