Everything Is Bigger In...Metropolis?

We have been planning a trip to see the Pyramids in Egypt next year (provided the political situation remains stable).  During our research on the country, we realized that the Red Sea is a great place for scuba diving.  I have been pining to get scuba certified for the past 20 years but never got around to it.  Career and kids always seemed to get in the way.  So I convinced The Wife to take lessons with me at The Dive Shop over the summer.  After several sessions, we were ready to do our open water dives.

We were hoping that our instructor Keith would be doing our certification dives this weekend.  However, he already had plans to attend the International Goat Days Festival with his grandkids.  I was speechless because I have never heard of such a lame-sounding event.  Seriously? Goats!  But then I found a YouTube video from this fair which showed people racing chariots pulled by goats.  This festival seems absolutely absurd.  Yet, I also find it strangely intriguing.

After work, we dropped the kids off with their grandparents and headed to Mermet Springs on the Illinois and Kentucky border.  Neither of us had ever heard of this place, but the advertisement poster at the Dive Shop proclaimed that it is "Just like the Bermuda Triangle...but not in Bermuda, and not a triangle".  The drive there sucked.  There is no major highway to get there so we had to pass through little podunk towns.  I tend to get annoyed whenever I have to turn my cruise control off.  As a result, I had a lot of road rage whenever the speed limit slowed down to as low as 35 miles per hour.

We finally made it to the assigned hotel after 10 PM.  Just a week before, we had stayed at the Four Seasons.  Now we were holed up in a Super 8 that smelled like an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting—cigarette smoke and stale coffee.  Inexplicably, they had crappy ESPNU, but not regular ESPN!  Who the heck wants to watch crappy Conference USA football games!  The beds weren't very comfy so we tossed and turned all night.  However, the hotel DID have free WiFi.  Super 8: 1, Four Seasons: 0.

You can't keep a scuba enthusiasts away from his "dives."

*****


Saturday, September 10, 2011

The next morning we drove the 12 miles to the dive site.  The place is an old quarry with a bunch of sunken vehicles and planes.  They had underwater speakers blasting hits from the 70's and 80's.  It's pretty emasculating wearing skin-tight neoprene while having to listen to ABBA.  The first 15-20 feet weren't too bad, but the thermocline below was freezing.  Experienced divers going to the deeper depths had to wear dry suits to protect themselves from the cold.  The Wife remarked that they looked like the SWAT team of the underwater world.  No, those would be the Navy SEAL's.

Things didn't start off smoothly for The Wife.  Literally seconds into her first dive, the mouthpiece fell off of her 2nd stage, causing her to suck in a load of lake water.  She freaked out and shot to the surface (we were only less than 10 feet underwater at that point).  This set the tone for her for the rest of the day as she had difficulty demonstrating some of the routine skills that she aced during her previous training.

The dives themselves were fairly uneventful.  On the first one, the visibility was still pretty good at around 20 to 25 feet.  We could see plenty of small fish swimming around.  They are so accustomed to divers that you can just reach out and gently touch them.  Some of the other open water trainees caught glimpses of decent-sized catfish.  The more advanced divers swimming at much lower depths ran into the odd-looking paddlefish (spoonbills), although none were the 200 lb Monster-fish variety.

Unfortunately, the other two dives that day were less enjoyable.  With all the people in the water (more than 5 dive schools) stirring up silt, the visibility was greatly decreased to only about 5 feet.  We did get a chance to visit some of the sunken structures in the lake.  Some of the more shallow objects include a school bus, a Cessna, and the fuselage of the airplane that was used to film the Tommy Lee Jones movie U.S. Marshals.  Yeah, that was the one with Wesley Snipes, not Harrison Ford.  There was even a motorcycle down there that served as an advertisement for a local bike shop.
For lunch, we ate at “Big Daddy’s” snack shack, a concession stand operated by the sloooweeest lady around.  When we finally did get our burger, hot dogs, and fries, I have to admit, it was worth the wait.  It was damn good.  Or maybe we just needed something to warm us up from the cold lake water.

During our free time after diving, we explored the city of Metropolis.  Yes, they do proudly point out that they are the “Home of Superman.”  And it isn't just cheap talk either.  They apparently have had over 30 annual Superman conventions there.

Isn't Superman from Smallville?

The townsfolk certainly ham it up with the Superman motif.  The lobby of our hotel had framed comic books as their décor.  Downtown, there is a Super Museum with over 20,000 items devoted to the “Man of Steel.”  The town newspaper is The Metropolis Planet (à la The Daily Planet).  They even have soft drink dispensers emblazoned with the “S” emblem.

We didn't go inside the Superman Museum.  I'm more of a Marvel Comics fan.

Bizarro?

 Someone put a bag on her head!

However, it was really the oversized statues throughout the area that we found fascinating.  Outside their city hall is a 30 foot statue of Clark Kent’s alter-ego.

Apparently this wasn't the first Superman statue erected by the town.  The original
was shot by folks who wanted to see if he really was faster than a speeding bullet.

The town’s only grocery store has a statue of a gigantic man named Big John as its mascot and namesake.  Even Mermet Springs celebrates their supposed monster fish with a sculpture of a giant catfish.  Unfortunately, you just don’t see these huge, over-the-top statues anymore.  I guess people nowadays consider them too tacky.  It’s too bad because they really do add to Metropolis’ small town charm.

You gotta dump a lot of bodies in the lake to feed this huge bottom feeder.

Big John also has a big package...of groceries.

Shouldn't that be a hamburger instead of an ice cream cone?

Mmmm...giant donut...

For dinner that night, we avoided the temptation of the casino buffet and drove across the river to Paducah.  We ate at an Asian-fusion restaurant that got surprisingly good business.  A similar style restaurant back home only lasted a year or two.


*****


Sunday, September 11, 2011

The next morning we finished our last two certification dives.  On the first one, The Wife complained of water leaking into her 2nd stage.  In between dives, I exchanged regulators with her to make her feel more comfortable.  On our second and last dive, just the two of us dove together.  Despite taking the same route that we had done the last four dives, I somehow got us lost.  We passed the school bus, then the Cessna, and then followed a guide line that we thought was going to the passenger airplane.  The water temperature got very cold and I realized that we were already 30 feet deep, with the line still descending.  Oops, I was following the wrong line.  With visibility at five feet, we swam around until we found another line that we followed.  Next thing we knew, we were back at the school bus.  Doh!

As we took off back to the Cessna, I suddenly sucked in a mouthful of lake water.  It took me a second or two to realize what was going on.  My mouthpiece for my 2nd stage had fallen off, just like what had happened to The Wife the day before.  I guess I should have checked all the components of the regulator after I switched with her in between dives.  After what seemed like an eternity, I was breathing with my backup 2nd stage.  Unfortunately, as panic was about to set in, I had dropped the disconnected mouthpiece.  Now with only a single 2nd stage, we didn't think it was worth the risk to continue diving deeper.  It was already hard enough seeing each other at a depth of only 10 feet.  We finished the dive at a very shallow depth and received our open water patch.  Yay!  Now I can buy a jacket so I can sew the patch on it.  Those jackets were really cool…when I was nine.

Instead of driving back home the way we came, we decided to make a detour.  45 minutes later, we found ourselves back at Lambert’s Cafe in Sikeston, Missouri.  It was a more relaxing experience this time without the kids.  We treated ourselves to more throwed rolls, pass-arounds, and huge vats of ice tea.  I finally bought myself a souvenir Lambert’s mug (I had coveted one for years).  The Wife had a tasty barbecue sandwich and I had a plate of fried hog jowls.  It sounds disgusting, but they have a consistency and taste very similar to chewy, thick-cut bacon.

In the end, we were happy to get our scuba certifications.  However, we came to the realization that we are not big fans of lake or quarry diving.  Hopefully, we will have a more enjoyable (and more picturesque) experience when we get to the Red Sea.