Fungus and Stuff

I really enjoy seeing the difference when I travel. Living in the Keys means you get used to one season all year round , and I like it, but when I go north get to see the effects of seasons.  I was looking forward to seeing my sister in law’s place in the North Carolina mountains in summer.

I loved the green but I suddenly noticed we were living in a green tunnel.  In the Fall when brown leaves are tumbling one gets a view through the trunks and in the distance Mount Mitchell And Mount Celo are a presence on the horizon. Right now Celo is locked in by green leaves:

It’s not terrible but it is different. At home the mangroves look the same year round,in winter it may be cooler and drier but the scenery doesn’t change! Up here...all change. 

Every afternoon or night we were there it rained.  Heavy rain.  It pounded the tin roof of the house like hail on a tent.   It was very snug lying in bed listening to it. 

I expected the rain to be a shower not a daily full on storm but the woods were reeling with moisture. Then the sun came out. 

It was a mushroom paradise. 

And ferns. 

I found ancient wooden mushrooms growing off trees:

Everything looked gnarly! 

I couldn’t step anywhere in the woods without seeing these lovely pink buttons. 

Primeval rocks exposed by constant rain 

The house itself seemed ready to be consumed by the reeling wet forest. Not at all like the Keys. 

Mi Familia

I like the Tolstoy quotation overused I dare say but impossible to prove or disprove. 

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

I have no idea how to measure family similarities or how to tell if they are all alike.

My nephew Jacob with his wife Bevin and their youngest Connor who isn’t cutting his hair until there is peace throughout the world. He isn’t going to see a hairdresser for a while I think. 

His older brother Aidan traded barbs with me before finally explaining how people who like each other jab each other. “We have a good relationship, Uncle Michael.” His grandfather Bob:

Somehow Bob and his wife Geeta below, my wife’s sister, raised two boys who have kept their ties, who gather from time to time and do things together. A happy family?  I’d say so.  Alike as other happy families? I have no idea. 

Jacob’s wife Bevin looks happy:

I was able to evade the grand reunion and I thanked my wife for that.  I don’t do well in crowds. But this lot I like. They know me and my weird jokes and my curmudgeonly ways and they play along.  I’m trying not to worry about vague plans for a family cruise this winter. I fear they may harden up.  Me and a one year old and a four year old in a ship for five days? 

Younger son Jesse with his youngest, a thoughtful little tyke...and his older daughter who promises to be a heart breaker in s few years.  Caught here posing by a rather appalled great uncle:

Her mother is the ever unflappable Megan.  Her serenity in the face of domestic chaos is legendary.  

That I get to move in the edges of this small crowd amazes me and instructs me. 

I grew up in a family that never let go. This lot doesn’t store resentment. They bicker and argue and disagree and what makes me feel okay is that they acknowledge shortcomings and faults but don’t disqualify family members because of them. Perhaps it’s how all happy families are and how they are all alike. 

I dare say the families I left behind have achieved happiness but they formed in my absence, my sisters grew old while I made my life in the New World. 

I wonder how my life would have been different had my parents been suited to each other. But it is idle speculation. 

Rusty seems to spend no time at all pondering the ghastly start he got in life. If he can do that my oddball beginnings don’t amount to much. Onward. 

And upward. 

Biltmore Asheville

Dale Chihuly has organized a massive display of works at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville North Carolina. 

My sister in law is a member and got us tickets. 

It is magnificent and it runs through November. 

Avoid Highways

In an effort to enjoy some countryside not generally available to people who live in the Keys we asked our Google mapping app on our iPhones to avoid highways on our drive from Steubenville to Charleston, the capital of West Virginia. 

It seems Google took us seriously and we ended up on gravel. It was a day driving without a list of things to see. Actually the idea was to see West Virginia but I forgot to ask Google Maps to take me through the state  so we ended up seeing much more of Ohio. Which was okay. 

But the mapping did take us into the back of beyond and it was lovely. 

Better than the freeway!