04-20-11 - The hours of not quite rain

04-20-11
“The hours of not quite rain”
9.8 miles
Having survived the severe weather warnings of the night before and having gotten a little horizontal rest, I was feeling good. Good enough to make breakfast. Not my standard Orange and water or whatever else was at hand to drink. No! a full on cooked breakfast. I had the orange and some ice cold O.J., a bowl of Life cereal, a Penut butter and mixed fruit jam sandwich (on whole wheat) and if that wasn’t enough of a pig - out, I made scrambled eggs with bacon bits on the fire in my soup pan and washed that down with some cider mix. Mischa got half the eggs!
Overkill, yes. Compensation for the prior night, probably.
I spent a lot of the day writing up prior notes and the last few days. I took Mischa for a walk around the grounds and then decided to post this on the internet; check the severe weather forecast for today in my area and see what are might be most weather safe for tomorrows move. I saw that the first rain was due around 35-40 minutes from then and I wanted to see if I could get Mischa some more of her chicken strips and if I could find some of the dry food she scarfed so readily in Florida from my friend’s dogs bowl.
I went into old town Clarksville. I brought to mind Jimmy Buffet’s song Ringland, Ringland “It’s a dyin’ little town”. It’s very old, very run down. But it has lots of charm and there are signs of a new generation starting to re-invent the downtown area. There are lots of opportunities to do so as a lot of the storefronts are vacant. Aside from this, or maybe because of it, the town appealed to me. Maybe it was the Spardra River going thru it. Maybe it was the old brick buildings tha had seen the turn of two centuries. I just like the place. Like Gastonia and a few others I’ve remarked on before. I stoped at a Seed & Feed store on Cherry Street and went in. They didn’t have either of the things I was looking for but the clerk gave me advice and two sample bags of dog food for free. (The advice was not to give Mischa soft food unless, until her teeth started going bad.
The sky was starting to look ominous about this time, so we hustled back to came and get settled in. I did some writing (thanks to electricity hookup) in the tent until it got dark.
There were occasionally flashes and booms of thunder and light moments of rain, but it was an altogether uneventful night. Thankfully!
I got to sleep around 10pm and only was awakened by late night trains.
I’ll take that!
On to another camp nearer the border to end Arkansas week - hopefully dry and intact.