like a rhinestone cowboy, on a steel horse i ride

i've spent my week near hilton head, watching my sidekick and her brother while their parents frolick in key west, florida. the commute to their private school is about half an hour each way, and i made three trips a day, due to the fact that sidekick's brother has football practice and needs to be retrieved about 3 hours after sidekick is dismissed from school. this translates into about 15 hours spent in the car this week, which further translates into 15 hours of radio/cd listening time this past week.

when i packed last weekend for the trip down here, i grabbed a few cds, since i have SO's car, which has the cd player that mine lacks. i figured i'd broaden the kids' musical horizons with the doors, huey lewis, kenny wayne shepherd, and billy idol. (the kids now know that you can get away with wearing leather after 50. in fact, sidekick's brother pointed out that steven tyler still dresses in that sort of thing. i contemplated pointing out that keith richards, who is even older, has extremely leathery skin, which should count for something, but i think we'll probably save that lesson for next time.)

anyway, after the 2 1/2 hour drive down and a few trips to/from school, i was sick of most of the above. (i was especially distressed to realize that my greatest hits of huey lewis and the news was missing "hip to be square". the really sad part is that i did not realize this until after scrolling through the album randomly* a few times, and then finally giving in, reaching under the passenger seat, and locating the cd case to confirm my fears.)

so, i've been using the cds mainly when the semi-local radio station i found (chuck-fm, out of charleston) plays something distasteful, like political commercials.

i was feeling too lazy one morning to hit the "cd" button when something i'd never heard bfeore came on.....or maybe i was more intrigued at how such a bizarre song could be produced- and without weird al being somehow involved.

I've been walkin' these streets so long
Singin' the same old song
I know every crack in these dirty sidewalks of Broadway
Where hustle's the name of the game
And nice guys get washed away like the snow and the rain
There's been a load of compromisin'
On the road to my horizon
But I'm gonna be where the lights are shinin' on me

Like a rhinestone cowboy
Riding out on a horse in a star-spangled rodeo
Like a rhinestone cowboy
Getting cards and letters from people I don't even know
And offers comin' over the phone

Well, I really don't mind the rain
And a smile can hide all the pain
But you're down when you're ridin' the train that's takin' the long way
And I dream of the things I'll do
With a subway token and a dollar tucked inside my shoe
There'll be a load of compromisin'
On the road to my horizon
But I'm gonna be where the lights are shinin' on me

Like a rhinestone cowboy
Riding out on a horse in a star-spangled rodeo
Rhinestone cowboy
Gettin' cards and letters from people I don't even know
And offers comin' over the phone

Like a rhinestone cowboy
Riding out on a horse in a star-spangled rodeo

FADE
Like a rhinestone cowboy
Gettin' card and letters from people I don't even know

a few years ago, while SO and i were visiting his relatives in phoenix, it was all over the news that glen campbell had been arrested for drunk driving. as i understand it, this is not an unusual thing to hear on the news. i believe i can understand why. i, too, would take up heavy drinking if i were responsible for this assault on the ears.

i called my dad to point this observation out to him, and he semi agreed, though i later learned that he, in fact, owns glen campbell's greatest hits. (despite his large collection of stones, depeche mode, elvis, and dr. demento cds, i am now beginning to question his taste in music.)

anyway, apparently daddy felt the need to share the news of the agony i was experiencing, as i called him again three hours later to notify him that the line "like a rhinestone cowboy" had been repeating in my noggin on a loop for the past three hours, which he then passed along to my sibling. i would have been none the wiser about this spreading gossip, except when i called her yesterday morning to compliment her on her choice of attire in celebration of "argyle friday" (i am not a participant, due to a lack of argyle apparel), she happened to mention "rhinestone cowboy". guess what wound up in my head for the next half hour?

to make matters worse, when i called daddy to discuss a completely unrelated matter, he felt the need to inquire as to how the "rhinestone cowboy" was doing. greeeeat.

two hours later, as i was heading over to the school to pick up the kids, guess what came up on chuck-fm's rotation? i nearly drove off the bridge, which would have been bad, because while the kids are good little hikers, i just don't see them making a 25 mile walk home from school. (naturally, i called my dad and told him he was to blame for all this, which he finds inexplicably funny. i am already planning my revenge, though i have not yet managed to locate "rhinestone chaps" on amazon.)

on the bright side, it seems i have finally found a way to get that dangblasted song out of my head- or more precisely, that line from that dangblasted song.

whilst shoveling out and reorganizing the boss's office this week, i've been running pandora on his computer. bon jovi popped up on my "def leppard" station when i got back from retrieving the kids, and i've found that somehow "rhinestone cowboy" gives way to "wanted dead or alive" pretty easily. since i dig bon jovi, i figure this is a good thing.

now, if i could just find those chaps........

*"why randomly?", you ask. well, the display on SO's stereo system hasn't lit up since before i met him, and apparently i somehow knocked the secret "shuffle" key sometime within the past two weeks. since the key is not clearly marked (unless "fade" means something different in his car than it does in mine), i have very little hope of switching it back.

babe (?) in the woods

in an effort to boost the bank accounts and finally get alaska and hawaii back off of my credit card (conditions that i've decided have to be met before i can travel again), i've been burying myself in work lately. unfortunately, i'm starting to burn out a little bit, so SO came up for the weekend and we took advantage of my working only one shift at the radio station yesterday and went hiking at the anne springs close greenway in fort mill, sc (near charlotte).

admission to the park was quite reasonable (as with most of the sc state parks we've been to, the admission is $2 per person. one of these days, i'll get around to ponying up for sc state parks annual pass- sometime after my finances have been straightened out.), and it was easy to find- just a couple of miles away from I-77.

the first trail we tackled was the 1.3 mile loop around lake haigler. while SO took a few minutes to prepare for the hike, i tried to snap a photo of this huge blue heron perched on a log near the shore. unfortunately, the heron heard the leaves crunching underfoot as i crept closer for the perfect shot, and the perfect shot wound up being a perfect shot of an empty log. i still have no idea where the heron flew off to. (pardon the dangling participle- sometimes proper grammar just looks too awkward to attempt.)

i'm afraid i can't share my perfect log picture with you- not because its beauty will stun you, rendering you unable to concentrate on anything else for the rest of the day. i can't share it with you because i was so irritated about the runaway heron that i deleted the photo in a fit of rage.*

instead, you'll have to settle for these:





lest my dad freak out over my hair, let me point out that it's actually in a ponytail. it's gotten within a few inches of my waist, and while i'm going to cut it, it won't exactly be a shearing long enough to send to locks of love, though i briefly considered it......

after we finished hiking around the lake, we headed toward the steele creek/blue star loop. we figured out that this trail added a hair over 3 1/2 miles, giving us about five for the day, altogether. (i believe that means what i'm currently feeling is about 2 1/2 miles in the back of each thigh- ugh. fortunately, i've managed to convince myself that it's a "good" pain and means my upper thighs/derriere no longer resemble the skin of an albino orange.)


fellow hikers. perhaps hot dog (with backpack) will post about our hike over on his brother bodhi's blog


one of the perks of hiking in the fall. even down here in south carolina, the leaves change color. this was after we passed the dairy barn and crossed old nation road.


at the old railroad trestle. i like this picture so much that i shrank (shrunk?) it down for my msn messenger photo.

the park features a mix of hiking, biking and horse trails. the trails we were on were fairly well maintained, though not always clearly marked...unless you count the "organic cairns" left behind by this guy....






*well, not exactly rage- more like frustration, really