An Incident Involving Nature

Episode One – Four Wheelin’

A couple of weeks ago we went to the first annual Georgia Hummer festival. Now while that might be a little surprising in its own right, what's even more surprising is that it was Brenda's idea. Going to a Hummer festival is something that I would not probably choose to do on my own, but would be much more willing to do than I would've thought Brenda was. However, Brenda has had new truck fever for some time and I figured this was a welcome, though somewhat bizarre, symptom. So it was on a Saturday morning we loaded the boys into the car and, armed with a new palm pilot based GPS system I had, set off for someplace called the Gaither plantation and the first annual Hummer festival.

I had not bothered to get directions to the festival, confident that the new GPS would be able to take us right there. Unfortunately, neither had I gotten the actual street address for the plantation (do plantations have street addresses?), but I did know the street name, so I picked an address at random on that street and told the GPS to figure out how to get us there. We drove for about an hour consistently zeroing in on the address. I was pretty happy when, at the point at which the GPS told us we had another 15 minutes to go, the pavement ended and we turned on to dirt roads. "Now we’re getting into Hummer country," I thought. I was eager to see how my xTerra would stack up against the Hummers. We stayed on the dirt roads taking little turns and random veers until the GPS said we were arriving at the destination. We were truly in the middle of nowhere and it was looking to be a good Saturday. It was then that I remembered that I had not put in the actual address of the plantation and had just picked one at random. We ended up at some lonely house in the middle of this dirt road. Fortunately, we still had a cell phone signal and were able to call some friends who had the actual address. It turned out to be another two or three miles further down the road we were on. We started off, but in just a few hundred feet passed a large sign saying "Danger! Bridge out." Sure enough, I found on proceeding anyway that the bridge was indeed out. For a long time I pondered the best way of fording the small river over which there was no bridge, thinking to myself that this was absolutely the best way to go to a Hummer festival. When I opened my mouth to announce my plan, before I could even begin, I was summarily overruled by Brenda who insisted that we turn around and find another way to get to the other side of the road.

Fortunately, the GPS was up to the task. I told it to plot a new route and it did so quickly, taking us on alternate roads until we approached the address from the other end. As we got closer to the plantation it was clear we were at the right spot. I was amazed by how many people were already there. Cars were parked all over a couple of pastures and people were streaming toward the plantation buildings. I was struck by how the people looked. In general, these were not the kind folks I would've expected to come to a Hummer festival. As we joined the crowd streaming toward the plantation it quickly became clear why. This was not a festival about manly paramilitary off-road examples of American automotive might. It was a festival about hummingbirds.

Next: Episode Two -- Ants, Banjos, Vomit, and the Amazing Angelletti

S.