after Tksg. road trip...

No Black Friday shopping for me, unless you are including a tank of gas, and snacks at the curbstore. I cannot imagine wanting anything enough to spend the night in a sleeping bag  on the side walk to get a bargain. 

I woke up about 4:30, left home around 5:30, so was in Q. by around 8:30, rearranged the lighting in the house, checked for trash as I assumed no one else had thought to take it out - and when I found it sitting in the big pick-up bin in the back yard, rolled it out to the street. How they expected the truck driver to know we had a wee little bag of trash awaiting in the bin sitting behind the house?... I cannot fathom.
 
Picked a bag 'o' satsumas to take and share, leaving the high ones I could not reach, and a few really low ones for the kids next door to enjoy. 
 
I stopped by J. Mitchell's house out off W. Screven St., for a little chat,  since I did not see her when I was there a couple of weeks ago, and gave her a handful of juicy little fruits. 
 
Went fifteen miles up Tallokas Rd. to Nichols Lake to visit for an hour or so, leaving a little trail of sweet, drippy satsuma-gifts, and on to Pavo and Thomasville, across the wiregrass through Camilla and Bainbridge, then south into Florida to Chattahoochee.  

We drove west across the river to someplace - Mariana, I think? - for lunch, and then back to Chatty., and just sat around visiting for several hours until we went north to Bainbridge, then  out in the country to the smack-dab middle of nowhere to meet relatives and have supper at the "Pond House" restaurant, a remarkably attractive, cypress sided building 'way to the west of town. I wondered 'are we in Alabama yet?' we went so far into the woods, but did not hit a body of flowing water, so I guess not...
 
When you live in the city, where 99 percent of the roads are paved, you can forget that you were raised differently and learned how to drive on dirt, rough, un-graded sandy stretches that turn into 'washboards' with sufficient time and travel. The last little stretch, when we got to the end of the 'hard road' was sandy, down a little hill, and into the unpaved parking area near the restaurant, located on the backside of nowhere. The drive out in the woods, which surely ended in Seminole County, made me think we had traveled as far south and west as possible to go and still be in GA. 

It reminded me of being fifteen years old in B.C., and grinding gears on the straight shift of the old Ford Fairlane station wagon. Anxious to do well, and nervous beyond description, with my dad riding shotgun, patient as Job, and far more confident than I about my 'readiness'.  I can remember stress over when to depress/release the clutch, struggling to coordinate hands and feet. Really a monumental task when up until then, the greatest complication of my life was using the skate key that I wore on a dirty little knotted string around my neck, and used to make sure the roller skates did not fall off as I rolled down the sidewalk south towards grandmothers house.


I wonder if I could do that now - all that hand/food coordinantion, but think it is probably like riding a bicycle- even if your skills get as rusty as the bike, your body parts never forget how to handle their particular assignments:  hands and feet, vision, balance - to keep everything going in the same direction at the same time.

The 'Fish Pond' location made me think of going with my parents and their friends years ago to the Homecoming fish restaurant in the woods of western Thomas County - you had to know where you were going to get there - and I think the advertising was kinda covert, all word of mouth - so someone who really liked you had to take you the first time to show you the route. Twisting and turning and veering down so many little cow-path-sized dirt roads, making you wish you'd brought a big ball of string to unwind that would help you find you way back to civilization before bedtime.

I left the friends to return to FL, patiently (or not so much) awaiting the birth of a grandbaby in Tallahassee... any news yet?


 
I think it was about 7:30 when I left that place in the woods, and started to feel my way back in the pitch black dark of a cloudy night, to Bainbridge and highway 27. Had to stop for some caffiene when I realized I was running off the road out there on the backside of darkness, and finally got back to Columbus at nearly 10:00, stopping at Walmart for cat food. I expected to be exhausted, wanted to fall into bed, but could not go to sleep until nearly midnight due to the soda I picked up at a curb store to keep me between the lines.
 
When I woke up this morning, I was pondering how far I had driven, and wish I had thought to make a note before I left home before first light on Friday morning. I know it is 167 miles from my house to the back door of 1209., and think my circuitous route to Bainbridge must have been another 100, then the loop back from north Florida would have to be as far as it is from C. to Q., so I am thinking close to 500 miles. 
 
I am pleased to say I do not have any plans for today.