My family's trip to Cookeville, TN from Philadelphia, PA was not without incident. We had to battle bad weather, furniture broken or could not be reassembled, my having significant, sudden vision loss just as the moving van was disappearing over the horizon, and my wife losing her glasses and being unable to drive.  While on the Interstate, we forgot to latch the back door of our Suburban and part of our luggage fell out onto the highway; luckily, we were able to drive back and retrieve everything from off the road before it was damaged (too much). It was a four-day drive with four young boys, all of whom were very anxious to get to the next destination. We heard incessant cries of, "How long 'til we get there?" all the way down.

One of the highlights of our trip south was a stop at the Luray Caverns in Luray, Virginia. I remember having been there many years ago as a boy when traveling down South with my parents. It is a truly marvelous place, with huge caverns full of stalactites and stalagmites, along with other interesting rock formations. They have a beautiful organ deep within the caves too, that was built decades ago using tuned rock formations as the sources of each musical tone. It was quite wet down in the caves, for it had recently rained there, and we had to be very careful not to slip, especially while trying to take care of four boys who were not very adept at staying together. We were frequently losing at least one boy as he would run off into the front of the line, or lag behind to get another view at something interesting. But the caverns truly were spectacular and not something to miss.  Afterwards, we went across the road to visit the Luray Reptile Zoo.  Stephen, my oldest boy, is very interested in all kinds of animals, especially the invertebrates found in the backyard.  He has had several reptiles in his room, including anoles, newts, and lizards.

We also stopped at the Roanoke Zoo to look at their collection of animals. Stephen particularly is interested in animals, and so we thought he might be interested in stopping at a zoo on the way down south. The zoo was founded in 1952 and became a non-profit organization in 1975.  Unfortunately, however, the zoo was much smaller than the Philadelphia Zoo and I think he might have been somewhat disappointed. The zoo was in a beautiful location on Mill Mountain overlooking the city of Roanoke and still had a beautiful if somewhat small collection of animals.

One of the more difficult parts of the trip was our stay-over in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Gatlinburg is a beautiful town just barely outside of the Great Smoky Mountains in eastern Tennessee. Just next to Gatlinburg is a five mile strip of amusement parks, rides, stores, and swimming areas just for kids so naturally the children wanted to visit there. One of the most famous sites near Gatlinburg is Dollywood - called "The Entertainment Capital of the Smokies."  It was opened in 1986, and is now billed as Tennessee's #1 tourist attraction, with good family entertainment.  However, our children's behavior was so terrible while we were traveling through Tennessee that we postponed these amusement areas until we went back there again. I find this particular area of the country really beautiful, and it brings back memories of when I used to visit there as a young boy.

We finally got to Cookeville on a Sunday, and we couldn't even remember how to get to our house.  The hospital had thoughtfully put us up at a local hotel overnight so we didn't have to spend our first night living in Cookeville in a house with no furniture.  The next day, the moving van arrived and the real work began.  We had to try to figure out where each piece of furniture - each dissected piece of our former lives - would fit in our new house.  This took many, many hours, and thoroughly exhausted us all.  The kids had a great time getting used to the new house, and exploring the woods and stream behind the property.

But everything has worked out well finally, My vision has largely recovered and I see as well as before with new contact lenses. We were able to safely recover all of the luggage that fell out of our car onto the highway, and my sons are slowly adapting to their new home, new friends, and new school. It has been a difficult time for all of us, though, but I like to think we have learned through this trial to appreciate each other more.  We have learned to help each other through the difficulties associated with moving to a new location far from everybody and everyone with know and love, but have come to develop new relationships and new friends who complement those we left behind.  It is as though we now have two "homes" - one in Philadelphia and the other in Cookeville.