I can’t seem to think ahead, planning-wise, past the end of the current month. So events scheduled for the beginning of the next month are almost always a surprise once I flip a page of the mental calendar in my head. One of my coworkers mentioned to me last week that she was going to be off Tuesday and Wednesday of the next week, but that meant she would miss out on holiday pay for Labor Day. “Oh,” I thought, “Is it time for Labor Day already?”

We can’t take off the day before or the day after a holiday and get holiday pay, otherwise everyone would want to and nothing would get done.

When I got home that night, Berck announced that he was going somewhere for Labor Day weekend, whether I was coming or not. He presented Chicago as a possibility and mentioned that my brother-in-law Nathan (his brother-in-law-in-law) was inviting us to join him and Steph at my family’s mountain house in Highlands, North Carolina. Chicago is twelve hours away, while Highlands is a brutal fifteen.

The more I thought about it at work the next day, the more I got excited about possibly going to Highlands. I needed to be in mountains. And I’d get to see my five-month-old nephew Ian. I heard he’s into giggling.

So after getting off work on Friday afternoon (we’re supposed to get off at one, but frustratingly, for the first time we didn’t finish our inventory counting until one-forty-five), I dashed home, took a shower, and we headed east.

Our trip almost got off to a bad start just outside of OK City. We’d poked behind a super slow truck through a one lane construction zone for miles. When the zone finally ended, we had the road before us completely empty. So we were zipping along, when we crested a hill. The radar detector screamed at instant-on K-band at the same moment Berck spotted the cruiser in the median and slammed on the brakes. We skidded a little as we passed him. Looking back, he had turned on his lights, but he didn’t pursue us. He probably looked at his radar detector reading and couldn’t believe that it didn’t register us as speeding.

Berck was able to get a twenty-five dollar Priceline bid for a “suite” in Nashville, the nicest twenty-five dollar hotel room I’ve ever stayed in. So we drove to Nashville and spent the night. Berck’s dad happened to be in Nashville at the same time, so we had breakfast with him.

We took a detour to be able to include US 129 in our route, and I remembered again that I shouldn’t eat breakfast whenever we’re planning on running Deal’s Gap with Berck at the wheel.

We finally got into Highlands about five-thirty local time. That gave us plenty of time to take a walk to Middle Satulah Falls, then drive up for a cookout on top of Sunset Mountain. The western sky was cloudy, so there wasn’t much of a sunset, though the sky did turn pretty colors. What there was were hordes of people up for Labor Day weekend, with the same idea we had, except replacing the grilled sausages with wine out of plastic cups. I’ve never seen so many people up there, but there is plenty of rock face for everyone. And everyone left soon after the sky show was over, leaving us to roast our s’mores in peace. Mmmm…. s’mores.

We stopped back at Buck’s coffee house in town, where a West Virginian calling himself Wildcat was playing the guitar and singing hillbilly songs. We all got coffee and sat down to listen. Ian had fallen asleep long ago on the mountain, but now he awoke and watched Wildcat intently from his little baby seat. Ian started making noise at during one song, and I thought he might be getting fussy, but when I looked over, Ian was laughing at the singer, grinning and sticking his tongue out at him. Wildcat said he was thrilled to have such a great back-up singer and shook Ian’s hand when it was time for us to go. Ian latched onto his finger and wouldn’t let go.

Back at the house, Berck and Nathan got their computers to share a dial-up Internet connection, and Berck discovered with much glee that everything he had set up to access back at our apartment worked perfectly. He even updated the Linux system on his computer in Norman… from Highlands.

The next morning we got up and ate pancakes and then hiked up Mt. Satulah. That hike is a lot less strenuous than I remember it being as a child. We found our house’s porch and the geocache left up there for GPS enthusiasts. Berck had the easiest hike uphill because he was holding onto Kimber’s leash, and she, in turn, was perfectly happy dragging him uphill. I love sitting on top of Satulah and watching hawks wheel and hover… dozens of feet below me.

Next we took the dirt road over the old iron bridge to Silver Run Falls. It’s a beautiful little waterfall that flows into a swimming hole. It was too cool to swim (the weather was perfect, cool and dry) for any of us except Kimber, who dragged Berck into the water when he tried to throw a stick in while holding onto her leash). We had a picnic lunch and watched the brave souls who arrived in swimming suits but left pretty quickly after testing the water.

Next it was back to town to get some ice cream at Sweet Treats. Then we stopped by Dry Falls so Berck could see it. “I’ve seen bigger.”

That night I stole some apples from our neighbor’s tree, Nathan grilled New York Strips, and Steph made a batch of amazing brownies. And we went to bed “early” in preparation for the drive back home in the morning.

It’s true, Ian is into giggling. If you smile at him, he’ll break into a huge grin, sticking his tongue out wildly, then start laughing, displaying his toothless gums. Steph said he’s been a little scared of strangers holding him, but when she plopped him in my lap, he didn’t get concerned at all. I was sitting on the couch with Steph on one side of me, Berck on the other, and Nathan looking over the back. Ian looked over at Berck, trying to figure out all the hair on his face. Steph told him that Berck was a bear. We all laughed, and Ian started looking at each our faces in turn, pausing at Berck’s each time, as if he were thinking, “Why is his face different from everyone else’s?”

It’s funny to see how crazy Ian is about his daddy. Whenever Nathan would walk into the room and say something, Ian would whip his head over to see where his daddy was, then start kicking his legs excitedly. As soon as Nathan said something to him, he’d start grinning and laughing.

Ian is also into rolling these days. He can roll all which ways, which is useful when the toy you want is just out of reach. He can also sit upright (if you put him in that position) and balance himself for a few minutes.

He’s still the happiest baby I think I’ve ever seen. I don’t think he really cried the whole time we were there.

The drive home has been pretty uneventful. On our way to Highlands we passed van after van decorated with various University of Tennessee paraphernalia, all traveling to Knoxville for the first game of the season. We fit right in with the huge orange T on the rear window of the Solara. Traffic was a lot heavier heading east than west. We saw a bunch of UT cars heading back west today.

We spent more time driving to and from Highlands than we actually spent waking hours there, but it was worth it. Berck needed to get out of the apartment, and I needed mountains. We had lots of audio books and CD’s of This American Life to listen to while driving, so the time flew by. And we got to eat at Krystal in West Memphis, the furthest west they go, both coming and going.

Well, it’s ten o’clock, and we’re just pulling into the apartment complex. It’ll be nice to get a decent night’s sleep before heading back to work in the morning (we’re working from seven-thirty to five-thirty all week to make up for Labor Day).