Summer Vacation - Days 10-12

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Originally uploaded by tcboos

Days 10, 11, and 12 - Leaving SC for Illinois

Our plan was to leave McClellanville by noon. That didn't happen. It is too nice here and we hated to leave. I have decided that I shall have a breakdown in a few months and have to recuperate right here in the guest house in the woods. It is without a doubt the nicest place.

I spent the evening and morning cleaning the guest house. That is what happens when you stay the longest. You are left cleaning up everyone else's mess! Madison and Darcy were very helpful vacuuming and folding laundry. Mandy helped me load up the car. We don't need the luggage carrier as Tom is home in Florida and so we put the third seat to make storage room.

We had lunch together at the dining table overlooking the bayou. We looked for the alligator that had been spotted the night before, but he was not to be seen, off sleeping under the cool water. James brought out his guitar and we sang and sang and sang. Mandy started each song, yelling, "Give me a G!" and we were off and singing. When we would finish a song, Macie would say, "More! More!" and off we would go. It was the perfect ending to a wonderful, wonderful, visit.

The only downside was that Connie had awakened with an orange hand. Her right hand was completely a yellowish orange on the palm and between her fingers. She was sure it was medically related as she is sucking down 14 different medications for her ailments, which are plenty. Her feet have bothered her off and on; she has good days and bad. James got on the computer and did some research, concluding that she had too much iron in her body.

Connie called her doctor (Stephanie, this you can relate to....remember last year?) and they said no, no, couldn't be the new iron medication she was on. They didn't seem to be too concerned.

We cried and waved goodbye to Joyce, James, Mandy, Evie, and Macie as they waved back from their porch. We had directions from James and we thought it would be funny to turn the wrong way out of their driveway, but we were too sad so we just honked and honked waving to the neighbor as well. We were off to Connie's friend Juanita's house in Mt. Carmel, Illinois, about 30 minutes from Evansville, IN.

Later that night in our hotel outside of Knoxville, TN Connie took off her shoes and both her feet were orange. I lay in bed while she showered wondering what I should do the next day; take her to a clinic, a hospital, call her doctor again, etc. When she came out of the shower and began putting on her lotion we discovered that the Vaseline lotion also included SELF TANNING in its ingredients.

Connie had been pouring the lotion into her right hand and rubbing her aching feet with it 24/7. Thus the mystery of the orange limbs was solved.

We spent the night where we picked up a huge black beetle that Connie found outside the Holiday Inn Express. We took it for my niece Gabby who is a bug lover. We thought it was dead, but it was still alive so we put it into a coffee cup with a lid and gave him some grass to munch. He rode up front in the cup holder until we stopped off in Evansville for 4 dozen Donut Bank donuts and some coffee and then the bug rode in the cup holder in Darcy's seat.

We arrived at Juanita's in time for some swimming and a dinner of Illinois sweet corn, green beans, tomatoes and cucumbers, and chicken. The weather was hot and everything a lush green. Mt. Carmel is a small town that reminds me of the past. If you blink you miss the town. Everyone walks everywhere and no one locks his/her doors.

The next morning I had my nails done in a hole in the wall beauty shop where I got all the Mt. Carmel gossip and quite a lot of scoop on Juanita. We went back to Juanita's friend's house where we swam all day in a beautiful pool surrounded by flowers. Juanita's great-granddaughter, Maya, joined us for the day and night. She is almost 5 and smart as a whip. She and the girls got along fine and played all day together. We toured Mt. Carmel by car and ate more corn and bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches. We ended each evening with several hours of cards. So far I think that I am ahead in the money.

Later in the evening, Connie went out to her car to bring in the bug. Only there was no bug. He had climbed up the cup, pinched and pinched through the sippy hole until he made it bigger and slipped out. He was loose somewhere in the car. Madison and Darcy searched (Maya refused to help as she hates bugs) and found him crawling under the driver's seat. We captured him again, put him into a Ziploc container, fed him lettuce and researched his species on the computer.

Our discovery led us to the following facts: He is a scarab beetle. He eats dead animals and dung. He is probably thinking, "What the hell is this lettuce crap? Why have these people brought me from Tennessee to Illinois?"

We will have to pick him up some road kill tomorrow, I guess.

We've named him Arab the Scarab.