Scene: The campus of Berea College. AJ and Harriet are walking around waiting for our takeout order to be done and stretching our legs after a day in the car. They walk over to an old house with pillars made of logs with parts of the branches still on them. One of the log pillars has a tree growing around it in a spiral. As they watch, a squirrel scurries up the spiral of the tree and climbs onto the porch roof.

AJ: Look! The squirrel is in the gutter!

Harriet: Yes, he is.

AJ: Squirrels aren�t supposed to be in gutters. Squirrel! There aren�t any nuts in there! Do squirrels eat anything besides nuts?

Harriet: I�m not sure, but I�m pretty sure they eat berries too. And I know they eat leftover food that people leave lying around.

AJ: Oh. There�s another squirrel. I�m going to chase him. [He runs and stops when the squirrel races up the nearest tree. He comes back and puts his hands on his hips.] Mommy, there are squirrels galore around here! [He does a crazy dance.]

Harriet: Squirrels galore? What are you doing? You nut!

AJ: Any time I act excited it�s because I�m almost six.

Harriet: I�ll keep that in mind.

* * * *

Day one of the trip was stressful. Torrential rain for most of the drive. We could barely see the bridge over the Ohio River and envisioned our lives ending in a long plunge to icy water. Our minds work like that. We are catastrophists.

Even the rest stops were unrestful. At one, we were parked next to the somber sign in front of a Baptist church that read, �You can move mountains on your knees.� If only you could move convoys of semis or pokey old lady drivers, I�d have spent the whole trip on my knees. At another we experienced the slowest fast food in the history of the universe. I don�t expect much from fast food workers, but when you have to explain what a hamburger is to someone who works for the big McD, then there is a serious problem. We sat next to several tables of people on some kind of a Baptist church trip. They called each other �Brother Ted� and �Sister Marylou� in a way that would have reminded me of Guys and Dolls if the words hadn�t been spoken with a distinctly southern Indiana accent. That was the same place where I watched a woman talking on her cell phone walk right into the men�s room. I could have stopped her. But I didn�t.

After more driving and a dinner break in Berea where we admired all the crafts wished we had arrived an hour earlier to shop, we headed to our hotel and were immensely glad to get off the road. The place we stay is a chain, but this particular branch defines southern hospitality for us. They are all decked out for Easter with hundreds of plastic eggs in all corners of the parking lot, a giant inflatable Easter Bunny by the front door (�Look!� exclaimed AJ. �He has a flashing light in his butt!�) and Easter bunnies and assorted country Easter kitsch adorning the lobby and dining area. Even the desk clerk was wearing bunny ears.

AJ had a great day. He did not like the rain � he kept his hands over his ears a lot of the time. But he didn�t let it get him down. We watched videos, played Blokus and Brainquest, listened to bluegrass on the radio � our favorite thing to do while driving through Kentucky � and sang along to assorted Carol King and R.E. M. CDs. We have another long day tomorrow before we get to my parents� house where pizza and wine will be waiting for us. Nothing beats booze and a beach at the end of two days in the car.

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