having fun

having fun, originally uploaded by pr9000.

The move to Franklin has been our third since 2002 -- Chicago to St. Louis, St. Louis to Minneapolis, and now Minneapolis to Franklin -- but for some reason I don't recall much about arriving in Chanhassen. It could be because I was living there for a few months while Amina sold the house in St. Louis, and it could be that the horrors of unpacking were avoided because we packed ourselves and thus knew where everything was ... as in, it took us almost a month to find our phones here. And we're still missing a computer.

I wish I could remember more about the last move, because I've found some curious things about this one:

Recreating our life. We had a nice routine in Chanhassen, and our first instinct was to find the Tennessee analogues ... grocery store sushi, for example. We ate sushi at Byerly's probably once a week. We've looked for some down here, and so far it's all been pretty nasty. I did the same thing when we moved to Chanhassen, looking for a decent grocery store salad bar because I'd become addicted to the one at Schnuck's. (Yes, that's the real name of a grocery store chain in St. Louis.)

We also had to find a place for Trotter to swim. Minnesota is the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Tennessee is the Land of One Lake And Maybe a Bunch of Rivers and Streams, Which Are Inhabited by Snakes That May Or May Not Be Poisonous and The Only Way To Tell Is To Get Close Enough to Look at Their Pupils, Which I Won't Be Doing Thank You Very Much. 

A neighbor told us about Garrison Creek, along the Natchez Trace just outside Leiper's Fork. There are two nature trails, and the creek has some nice, deep swimming holes that do the job as a substitute lake. Not long after the photo above was taken, the double-ended ball was lost, the victim of a poorly aimed throw. It landed very close to the creek bank and was immediately sucked under some roots, never to be seen again. Every nasty, poisonous creature in my imagination lives under there, and I wasn't about to risk any body part to save a toy, no matter the amount of service we'd gotten from it in the past ...