Cave cheese and stinky chips

There's nothing that packs quite so much of a punch as the aromatic combination of salt and vinegar potato chips mingling with the equally subtle blending of dill pickle-flavored potato chips when crammed within the close confines of a truck during a seven-hour road trip to Connecticut. Shake but not stir with a Slim Jim and life would have been nauseatingly perfect.

As my daughter, Sydney and I were traveling with my beautiful teen-aged niece Brianna, we decided to break up the journey at the mid-way point with a stop to the world-renowned Howe Caverns. "You are the most claustrophobic person I've ever met," my friend Sarah protested, "Remember ten years ago when Sydney and I had to push you through the Cavern's Winding Way like you were Pooh Bear stuck in Rabbit's Hole?" "I'm not going in," I reassured her, "I'll relax by the roaring fire."

"Connie," I complained to our ticket taker, "where is the roaring fire?" "It doesn't work," she admitted while I began working on Game Plan B. "Where are you going, Mom," Sydney asked as she and Bree waited in line. "I'm going to gather kindling for the fire," I told her before stomping off.

Once I was brought up-to-date on local fire codes and informed that my plans could be loosely interpreted as arson, I settled into a warm cozy chair to watch three run-throughs of the Howe Caverns informational video. I did learn that the lodge had been burned to the ground THREE times over the course of its hundred year existence so I was glad that I had erred on the side of caution regarding my roaring fire plan. Three times of a boring informational video is definitely the charm because I was soon sleeping like a baby, waking up to Connie whispering to her friends, "That's the woman who was going to start a fire."

Awoken, refreshed, I wandered off in search of sustenance. I realized that I had developed another phobia when I saw that the cafe menu was limited to the sale of giant dill pickles. "No thanks, I'm off pickles right now," I said, walking away. I managed to procure a hot chocolate, touched the grand piano that had a sign that said Don't touch the grand piano, and settled in by the majestic picture windows overlooking the scenic valley below. I rearranged the furniture, kicked back, grabbed a paper napkin, and immediately wrote a haiku. (See Facebook's "The Hundred Haiku Challenge").

The girls at last emerged from the depths of the earth and we hit the snack shop for fudge and cave cheese. It was an amazing mid-trip visit. "Get in the truck, Mom," Sydney shouted as she and Briana shoved me from behind like I was Pooh Bear refusing to enter Rabbit's warren. I wouldn't have blamed that lovable ol' bear, either. If Rabbit's house (howse) smelled like salt and vinegar AND dill pickle flavored potato chips, I wouldn't visit him either. Or get in his truck.