What a torturous day!

First the good news: We found Juli at the airport without further mishap. We had a big family breakfast at Shoney's. We got to Chattanooga on time and found the storefront where the TWIC cards were being administered.


From there, things went seriously downhill. Yesterday was the second day this "center" was open, consequently, no one knew anything about doing their boondoggle government jobs with anything resembling efficiency or minimal competency. The appointments that everyone signed up for online were calibrated in Central Time--never mind that Chattanooga is really on EDT. Appointments that were slated for 15 minutes each were actually taking about 30 minutes to complete. No one knew who was coming or when. The staff of two was about 3 hours behind schedule. The "office" was a large, bare-floored room filled with multitudes of angry transportation workers sweating (no A/C) in rickety folding chairs, waiting. And waiting. We went to the mall for an hour. We went back to the TWIC office. We had a picnic on the median strip of grass. We went in the office and glared at the woman at the desk (I brought the dog inside too, just itching for her say something about that!) Bill was highly embarrassed, and I think, increasingly fearful that I was going to blow my stack at this very nice, but thoroughly incompetent woman. He got directions to a nearby park on the Tennessee River, and the kids, dog and I went there for a couple of hours. The kids read. Echo ate grass. I knitted a scarf. Bill was finally done with his business around 3 pm.

Then we started the long trek home, via Sweetwater and The Lost Sea caverns. We arrived just in time for the 4:30 tour. Bill babysat the dog in the shade, while Juli, Alex and I explored the caves. It was very fun, and deliciously cool underground. Our tour was small, just one other family of four, so we had plenty of time to poke into corners and ask all our questions. It was also very dark:

Then, back in the car for more driving, more driving. Bill was feeling perky again by the time we got to Sevierville, and wanted to stop for still MORE fun at the Smoky Mountain Knife Works. I put the big kabosh on that idea--by this time, it was 7 pm and they weren't open anyway! We finally got home to La Casa Redondo after 8--hot, tired and very, very hungry.

Some of us were more annoyed than others:

Juli made a huge salad, Alex made garlic bread, I cooked pasta, and we sat down to a family dinner at last around 9 pm. Ridiculous!

Echo did so much panting yesterday, it's amazing that she's breathing at all this morning.

I have half a mind to write my elected officials and tell them what their latest Homeland Security nonsense has wrought on this American family. Like they care...