Operation Lion's Den - Friday, Part Deux

Where to start? Laugh, cry, cry, laugh? Once again, my dive trip has officially been upgraded to "Odyssey". Why does this stuff follow me around? It's a conspiracy, I;m pretty sure. There is a network of people who's only job is to lie in wait for me to go by. Most of the year, it's just getting in my way in traffic to piss me off to capacity, but when I get on a plane....

We land in Cape Girardeau and taxi up to the "terminal". Now usually there's a jump-suited guy with a reflective vest, headphones and those little glow flashlights standing in your parking spot. With the help of some arcane hand gestures, this helpful man directs you to your parking spot next to the FBO (gotta love aviation acronyms...).  Cape G, has a janitor in shorts, a black sleeveless Lynyrd Skynyrd tour t-shirt (we'll call him "Bubba". This dude "mossies" out onto the ramp and points a finger at a spot on the tarmac. Assuming that he wanted us to maneuver in that general direction, we taxi towards him till he gives us a 'stop' gesture and then saunters off, supposedly to finish swamping out the head.

The heat and humidity slams into us as we deplane. Inside the terminal, we find air conditioned comfort, southern accents and a massive Tupperware tub of homemade oatmeal cookies. Hours in the pilot's lounge, where I try to find a comfortable position in a lounge chair, I take a nap.  In fact, I've done a lot of napping.  I whill have a whole photo album of pictures of me napping by next week.  "Here's one of me, sleeping next to the Alamo....".

We research alternative routes to our destination in vain. The storm front is all along our flight path. We get a break at about 10 pm, and hustle out to the plane to make a mad dash to Nashville.

The night sky is clear and beautiful. The lights of the cities spread out to the horizon like amber Christmas lights. Calm skies ease us into Tennessee.

40 miles out of Nashville, we get the report that the storm opening has closed in front of us and we decide to be smart and layover here for the night. Rebbecca has assured me that they will not dive the U-352 without us, so with that in mind, I approach something akin to calm as we begin our descent into the Mecca of the south and the home of auspicious sites such as Dollywood and the Grand Ole' Opera.

Another ambiguous crew car and another random motel room.  We walk next door to a place called the "Waffle House".  Did you know that you can get waffles AND fried chicken on the same plate?  Doug is eating something called, "grits".  Doug is weird...