night one of national lampoon's mountain vacation

hello from north carolina. pb and i are enjoying a little r & r for a few days. we have been anticipating this vacation for months and could not wait to get up here and build a fire in the new fire pit. when we left the blazing heat and rome on thursday we had visions of the stars, a perfect fire, and cool weather ahead of us for the evening. we even ran back home to get the ipod dock that we had forgotten...can't have a fire night without some tunes....and headed out of town.

the drive was not a bad one and when we arrived in waynesville around 6:00, we grabbed mexican for dinner before heading up to nirvana. once the steep climb was made and my ears had adjusted to the pressure of the higher altitude, we unpacked, opened a bottle of wine and headed outside, music in tow and smiles on our faces. pb started working on the fire, arranging pieces of wood like it was a sculpture, and i got the chairs and music ready. once it was going, we sat down to let out a collective sigh. ok, not that our lives are that stressful, but it's just so nice to get away and have none of the daily demands of life and a change of scenery. we had been waiting for this. and then the thunder started. after that, a few raindrops. more thunder and more raindrops. neither one of us was acknowledging the possible change in plans for this long awaited evening. after the rain picked up a little more, we decided that we would take our party to the front porch. not as much fun, but we were not going to let a little rain ruin our night. we moved the music, settled into some comfortable chairs on the porch, and carried on with plan b. the rain didn't last long so we took it back outside to the fire pit. the fire was still going so we tried plan a again. this lasted a very few minutes and then the bottom fell out. we scrambled to grab the wine and music and resigned ourselves to the fact that plan b was going to have to suffice for this first of many evenings still ahead of us on our picture perfect vacation.

so, we sat on the porch and listened to the rain and wind and talked about all sorts of things. now, some people think ignorance is bliss. and i tend to agree with this on some levels. we had been enjoying about an hour of ignorant bliss when pb got up to go inside for some reason. what we didn't realize was that in the blissful enjoyment of our rainy, windy evening, the door closed sometime earlier, and we had been locked out. our ignorance and the thought of spending the night on the porch didn't seem very blissful anymore. so plan c. send pb to check every door outside in the rain, call my mom, and wait for a neighbor to bring a key. we enjoyed the porch with a now unlocked door for a little while longer, then called it a night.