Life in the Fast Lane: Thompson Edition

Inspired by The Huffmaniacs, the Thompson's decided to reminisce about their first cars. Both of us were very lucky to have great first cars. They were sleek, sexy, and every 16 year olds dream.

Meredith: A 1989 Buick Electra Station Wagon, complete with wood paneling! To make the car even sweeter the "wood paneling" was sticker and got scraped off when doors opened into it. To hide this fact (and fight rust) mom covered these spots with "wood paneling" contact paper... it was sweet! Who wouldn't want this car, especially to take their maneuverability test for drivers ed? Next, I inherited a 1992 Dodge Grand Caravan... also with wood paneling. I pretty much was the envy of everyone on the road.

(our van was green with wood paneling but this was as close as I could find)

Harry: My first babe magnet was a 1972 Chevy pickup truck. Well, it was mostly Chevy. It did have a GMC tailgate, most likely due to my dad backing into something with the original, but let's not split hairs. More important were the interior luxuries, such as the stereo system. Technically I guess it was just a mono system, since there was only one speaker (which, conveniently, sat beside me on the lovely navajo-patterned bench seat cover). Below is a picture of what the truck might have looked like new, though this is a far cry from the way that I remember it. Since the only picture I could find was blue and white, I have taken the liberty of adjusting the color to a more accurate green and white in Photoshop, but have spared myself the work of adding realistic dents, rust spots, and the lovely "HARRIE'S TRUCK" that some jackass at my high school carved into the front of the hood. Enjoy!

I can't worry about anything else!

I don't know if anybody else has been caught making the statement above lately, but I have made it a lot the past few days... and yet, something more for me to worry about always comes along. On my list currently are (of course) the economy... will Harry and I have enough money to pay all our bills this month and buy gas; school... am I doing a good enough job, are the kids challenged, are they happy? can I actually get my National Board Certification... everybody says it is about 200-300 hours of work, can I do it and do it well enough to certify? is the house clean enough? do I talk to my family enough? who will our president be, will they do a good job?

The list could go on and on. Then, on the way home I am stopped in traffic, not once but twice, because ALL of Charlotte is freaking out because there is a gas shortage because of hurricane Ike and the lines to get into the gas station are so long the police are called in for reinforcements. Something has got to give soon.

Because we had $1500 just laying around...

Harry and I got a little surprise this week, our refrigerator/freezer stopped working. Yea! This is exactly how I expect a 7 year old appliance to hold up. It all began on Tuesday evening when, while sitting down to dinner, I noticed water all over the floor in front of the freezer. After investigation we found that the freezer had completely defrosted. Hoping that the door was just accidentally left open we made sure the door was closed and hopped everything would re-freeze. It did not. On Wednesday we decided to go refrigerator/freezer shopping and decided on a GE side-by-side from Lowes. Then we got to take on the wonderful task of emptying out our broken fridge/freezer. It was pretty disgusting. We lost about $200-$300 of food that day (including 2 turkey breasts, chicken, 2 pounds of scallops, many many sauces and spreads, ALL of our ice cream and popsicles, and perhaps still our frozen veggies-I have yet to test them). Our saddest loss was the top of our wedding cake... yep, we still had it. We were not under any circumstances going to eat it at this point, but we were holding on to it for sentimental purposes. It still looked beautiful (that is until it defrosted and got roughed up in the cleaning-out process).



We did still end up with a white-trash fridge for the day consisting of 4 coolers and many drinks that simply couldn't be cooled because they wouldn't go bad if they were left out. (Joanne, you may notice you had your very own section of drinks that only you will drink sitting on top of our largest cooler.)



Finally, our new refrigerator/freezer was delivered and I spend the evening taking plastic wrap and tape of of it and filling it with the little food we were able to save. We really do like our new fridge, but we wish we didn't have to spend $1200 to get it, not to mention all of the money we will have to spend to restock it. For now at least we can say we have a very clean, very organized, and very cool/cold refrigerator/freezer... and that is more than we could say on Tuesday.

SNAKE!!!

Tonight Harry and I decided to enjoy a dinner out. As soon as we pulled into the driveway I noticed something hanging from the bush closest to the car. Being the skeptic I am, I did not get out of the car but waited for Harry to get close enough to the vegetation to investigate "the thing hanging from the bush". Harry did not notice the "thing" hanging from the bush (which is helping me come to the conclusion that Harry will be mauled by a bear that is 3 feet way from him simply because he did not notice it). Even as Harry leaned closer to the bush to investigate he did not see the "thing". Finally, after my prompt, "is that a snake?" Harry realized that it was indeed a snake... YES, a SNAKE! On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being the scariest thing on Earth) I think snakes rank about a 15 for me. This caused me to contemplate what to do next. Upon the conformation that there was a snake in front of the house I slammed the car door. I began to wonder how long I could survive in the car over night with the windows up (cracking the windows would leave room for the snake to crawl into the car). What could I do? I could not simply walk past the snake into the house and I could not sleep in the car. Finally, Harry suggested going into the house through the garage (still too close to the snake for me, but an acceptable compromise). I decided to crawl over the center console and exit the car from the driver door, it was a somewhat acceptable distance from the snake, and then run through the garage into the house. It was a terrifying experience but I survived. I have not been able to see the snake from the house, but I know it is there. Harry seems to think it is a small garter snake, but since I did not see it so I'm not sure how accurate that is. I can only assume it looks similar to the snake below.


I am hoping that I am able to leave the house tomorrow and the snake is no where to be seen. Joanne (who for some strange reason is not afraid of snakes) is on-call to assist if a need arises. My back-up plan is to have the Cornelius Police Department come and remove the snake, because let's face it, I'm sure they don't have too much else going on and have always been willing to help with vermin (such as a fox) in the past.

Meme too!!

Since Clay and Karen started the trend, we are carrying on the Meme Monday theme (well, that, and we have nothing else exciting to write about). As previously instructed, if there are readers out there, feel free to respond in the comments section with text or a link to your own meme.

For now, it's just me, but perhaps Meredith will add her responses later. Here goes:

9/8/2008 Meme Topic of the Week: Movies

1. What movie has you in utter disbelief that so many people find the film worthy of being called good or even great?

Harry: “Dirty Dancing” Nobody puts Baby in a corner? If there's a set of earplugs and a mask in that corner, I'll be more than happy to take her place.

Meredith: "Sleepless in Seattle" Although I LOVE Seattle, I hated that crap of a movie. I will never forget seeing it in the Oqunguit, ME movie theater with Martha and Carin. It was and continues to be the worst movie ever made. Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks should hang their head in shame.

2. What movie do you find so bad that it’s good?

Harry: “The Hindenburg (1975 version)” Far-fetched sabotage theory? Check. 1970's "special" effects seamlessly spliced with actual grainy newsreel footage? Check. What's not to like?

Meredith: Snakes on a Plane... hands down! Get these mother f-ing snakes off this mother f-ing plane. Pure poetry, thank you Samuel L. Jackson!

3. What T.V. movie do you think is worthy of having the description of “pretty good for a T.V. movie?”

Harry: “Call Me: The Rise and Fall of Heidi Fleiss” I guess Jamie-Lynn Sigler (when did she stop being Discala, btw?) had some spare time since The Sopranos was over. Good enough for me!

Meredith:"A Friend to Die For" aka "Death of a Cheerleader" yes, it is a lifetime movie. Starring Kellie Martin (from "Life Goes On" and "ER") and Tori Spelling. What can I say... dorky Kellie Martin kills stuck up Tori Spelling, a Texas Cheerleader, it's pretty much the best Texas cheerleader movie ever made, and there have been a LOT of Texas cheerleader movies made.

Stone Mountain, North Carolina

This weekend Harry and I traveled about an hour and a half north to Stone Mountain for some camping and hiking.

Once we arrived yesterday we set up our campsite.


Then we went for a short hike to the nearby falls.


The top of the falls.


The falls from midway down.


The falls as seen from the bottom.


Harry and I resting at the bottom of the falls.


After our hike we went back to the campsite to enjoy the beautiful night sky (and the out of control fire at the European's camp next to us).


This morning we woke up and got ready for our longer hike to the summit of Stone Mountain.


We saw lots of wildlife on this trip, including TONS of deer.


We also encountered this small box turtle on our hike.


Our destination, Stone Mountain summit.



There were many beautiful streams all throughout the park.


Getting closer...


We made it!




There were some gorgeous views from the summit. We had a great time and got some much needed exercise!

Our Last Day in Washington (Finally Posted)

So yes, it has been a few weeks since we returned home from Washington state. However, Harry and I are just now getting around to posting it. Why, you may ask, we are tired... that is all. Enjoy pictures of our last day in Washington (we sure did enjoy our last day taking the pictures, everything but the leaving part).

We started the day out traveling to Snoqualmie Falls in Snoqualmie, Washington. We got to cross a lot of these quaint little bridges all throughout the state.


Then we reached our destination... Snoqualmie Falls.


After seeing the falls from the top, we decided to hike down to the bottom of the falls.

The forests in Washington are beautiful. We enjoyed all of the moss and ferns.


Pausing for a picture, it was SO green!


The river, after falling over Snoqualmie Falls.


Snoqualmie Falls from the bottom. It was huge!


Enjoying the view and the wonderful Washington weather.


After hiking back to the car Harry and I went to the world famous Lockspot Cafe for lunch. In a previous entry I mentioned that this is where Discover Channel films "After the Catch", an sit-down interview with the captains and crews of "Deadliest Catch".


The Lockspot Cafe was so named because it is located on the Locks that boats traveling from the Pacific Ocean toward Seattle travel through to rise to the correct elevation. Here you see the water level of the Pacific on the right and the water level that they are rising to on the left.


The locks looking toward the Pacific.


The Salmon Ladder (a way for salmon to swim upstream through the locks).


Us, at Mike and Suzanne's wedding. The whole reason we went to Seattle.

Finally... the last of our Washington trip. Does anybody want to pay for us to go back?

Mount Rainier

Harry and I have been bad about finishing posting our Washington pictures, but we did want everybody to get to see how beautiful Mount Rainier was when we climbed it a few weeks ago.

This was the scenery just inside Mount Rainier National Park.

There are many rivers like this running through the park. This is a glacial melt river, you can tell by how cloudy the water is. The snow melt rivers run crystal clear.


One of our many Rainier pictures (this one taken on our way to the visitors center). There was this one cloud circling the summit all day long.


Harry and I enjoying one of the many picturesque pull offs.


While driving to the visitors center we stopped to hike the short trip to Narada Falls. It was breathtaking.


The view of Rainier from the visitors center parking lot. This is where we would begin our hike up part of the mountain to Glacier Vista.


Harry and I beginning the hike. There was still 7 feet of snow on the ground, much to our surprise. We were completely unprepared for the hike but we enjoyed it anyway.


Many of the trees lower on the mountain looked like this. These are the tops of evergreen trees, leaning downhill because of the weight of the snow.


This was the "trail" to Glacier Vista. It became somewhat difficult to find the correct way to go as we got higher up.


Rainier, getting closer.


Harry after hiking for about an hour.


Me posing with the mountain.


The view of the mountains. You can see Mount Adams in the background. Many of the hikers thought Adams was erupting (it is a volcano just like Rainier and Mount St. Helens) but as it turns out there was a forest fire near the summit of Mount Adams causing all the smoke and ash to be released into the clear sky.


The view down the mountain. Our car is somewhere down there.


Mount St. Helens in the distance, as seen from near Glacier Vista. This is the collapsed norther side of St. Helens that was created in 1980 when it erupted.


The glacier we hiked so far to see. There is a waterfall caused by the glacier melt.



Harry and me at Glacier Vista.

A 360 degree look at Mount Rainier as seen from near Glacier Vista.


The beautiful valley below Mount Rainier.


A closer look at Mount Adams. It really does look like a volcano.


Two snowmen that looked out of place in July.


This is Reflection Lake. It was pretty iced over so Harry and I didn't understand that it was so named because, when it is clear of ice, it perfectly reflects Mount Rainier.