03-10-11 Carry on my wayward son

03-10-11
Carry on my wayward son
There’ll be peace when you are done
Don’t you cry no more
23 milesa
5:45 am Truck sounds outside the room.
Warming up.
Wasn’t I just up at 3 -something?
I try to ignore it.
Try.
- - -
Success…till 7 am.
Other cars and trucks warming up.
I organize things so I can load the car quickly and put Mischa in and go.
But first - Continental Breakfast!
I used to think “Continental” was very posh. Not any more. Not if this is what “continental types” call Breakfast!
Cheap, I calls it!
Waffle - O.J. and split! Not much to hang around for.
Mischa’s been good. No Barking!
I take a bath and then decide to give her one!
It’s been awhile. I dry her off and start to load the car while she is covered in a warm dry towel.
She starts to bark!
“Hold on…I’m just at the Car!”
She’s not having any of it. So I put her in the front seat with my sweater over her. And finish loading.
She doesn’t want me out of her sight.
This happens from time to time. Almost always when I want her to be quite and discreet. I just have a little bit to get and she’s calmed by me sitting in the car with her for a few moments.
I’m organizing the items i’m trying to put away but it’s approaching time for me to get the rest, check the room one last time and leave.
Our first destination today - Walmart!
Why do I feel guilty writing this?!
I know why.
But I’m going just the same.
At Okelika’s Walmart I’m on a mission for 4 things; Sponge, Exacto knife, blanket and tent heater.
I leave with a trap, a foam mat and two (small) pecan pies. I’d checked cell phones too, but their selection was shady looking and no one was around to help.
After checking a thrift store with no luck, I find another Walmart in Auburn.
I got the sponges, passed on the Exacto knife, got a “Like Down” blanket for $20 and found but held off on the tent space heater.
We’ll see tonight how well the “Like Down” hypoallergenic blanket does.
While in Auburn, my sister, Cindy told me to go to a place called Toomer’s Corner” and have their Sweet Lemonade. I went in and sat at the lunch counter on a round stool next to two black co-eds from Auburn who were having lunch. I ordered the Lemonade and thought briefly about the Selma march and how fifty years ago this tableau would have been inconceivable and how today perhaps I gave it only a half a seconds thought. But that half a seconds though did make me smile.
But my focus of attention was upon getting this fabled drink. The young man behind the counter showed me the ropes. Upon se3lecting the smaller of the two sizes ($2.95 was enough to pay for lemonade - no mater how good it was), he took the small Styrofoam cup (Styrofoam…really?) and where I thought he’d pour from a pitcher he took a measuring cup and squeezed fresh lemons until the proper level of juice had filled the scoop. Then the mixture of simple syrup and those items were mixed with water and ice and then presented to me. And it was perfect.. Lemonade as theater.
On to Chewacla State Park. (where I had originally planned to stay two nights ago..before the storm!)
For out last night in (dare I say it?) Ala-Damn-Bama! (As the Tuskegee airmen called it!)
Got the tent set up. Walked Mischa. Settling in for the night after typing all the notes from Dec. 13th thru Jan. 16th - the first chapter of the book.
“Chapter 1 Pre-road Downs”
I filled out folder for Chapters 1- 16.
By the time I get caught up and hopefully by my week in South Carolina I’ll have enough amterial to submit to book publishers.
And two states after that I hit the ¼ mark of the Journey!
I know it’s “one day at a time”, but sometimes I get so excited by how far I’ve come already and what’s coming next that it’s hard to contain the dreaming.
Like Red said in The Shawshank Redemption - “Hope is a good thing. Perhaps the best of things.”
I hope to complete my Journey.
I hope it touches as many lives as my own.
I hope!