The boys and I drove out to Jackson Falls this morning, which is just off of the Natchez Trace.
The beginning of the trip was GREAT…the boys were reading on their tablets and I was jamming out to some new Ruston Kelly tunes and enjoying the open road. Then, we hit probably a 10 mile stretch of curvy country roads. About 5 miles in, Jonas started asking to roll the window down and looking pale, and Roman out of nowhere said, “Mom, I don’t feel so good” and then vomited in the back seat. Luckily, there was a place for us to pull over. So, I let them kind of get their bearings while I cleaned up. I made the executive decision to move Roman to Jonas’ seat and Jonas to the passenger seat, put on a movie that Roman could focus on, gave both of them a salty snack to eat, put the air on full blast, rolled down all the windows, and forged ahead through the last 5 mile section of wind-y-ness. It was definitely one of those trapped feelings, probably for all of us. I am the QUEEN of motion sickness, so I totally understand the hell. The only reason I wasn’t feeling that sick was because I was driving.
After making a wrong turn and heading down the Natchez Trace the wrong way, we finally made it. The walk down to the waterfall was not that challenging…it was paved with some stairs and a railing. I’m not sure if it’s always like this, but the waterfall was just barely trickling into a pool that was a few inches deep. So, we ended up climbing up a bit to the “natural waterslide”, and the boys spent the rest of the time there. At that point, I was wishing Tom was with me because they all flipped into daredevil mode, and I’m more anxious/nervous about all of that than Tom is. He would’ve been right in there with them. I was just standing there saying, “Don’t run!”, “Wait your turn!”, “Don’t stand up and try to walk down!”, “Sit down!”, etc. Xander was giving me the big (what I’m assuming is the beginnings of) preteen, “Moooooooom!” which he had to be pulled to the side a few times for…the attitude. He was pretty much just sprinting up the slick rocks and sliding back down, which scared me half to death. And Roman had to sit out a few times as well for being a sassy pants to other kids and to me. Meanwhile, Xander and Roman were alternately begging to go home, saying, “This is boring!”. I mean, seriously. Really?!? I was SO done. Jonas wanted to stay longer to make the good times outweigh the bad (i.e. more time having fun on the natural waterslide than riding in the backseat of a minivan on curvy country roads). But, alas, we had to go with the majority, as I could sense major meltdowns coming on. Help us all.
The natural waterslide was really so cool, though…I’m thankful they got to experience that.
