backing up in time - Friday (day 1)

The date that will post will be on Sunday, but we left Lynch on Friday, August 10, 2012. So here we are.

I got home for TN, a week ago, on Sunday, which I think would be the 3rd. Completely physically exhausted from going up the mountain, down the mountain. Then driving for hours and hours over and around different mountains to get back to my little nest  With legs so ache-y I probably could not get back up if I had to squat, and would have just fallen over like the little kid on the tricycle in the cartoons. I knew I was expected to show up for work on Sunday, so I drove down from Decatur, leaving there at about 5:30 a.m. Back to the house about 7:30, where I immediately heard my bed calling, and laid down for a little nap.

Got up a little after 9:00, jumped into clothes and went to church, then on to work. Whereupon I found myself in such great demand that I was on the work schedule for four more days: T,W,T,F. Which was so unexpected, as I had made notes on the desk calendar everyone uses for scheduling requested time off, that I was 'unavailable' for the entire week of 8/11-19.

But I wanted to get paid, so I worked those days, even with crazy legs, finally beginning to feel like a real person again by mid-week. I asked to come in really early on Friday, so I could leave at noon, and get started on the Next Great Adventure: driving to the north pole.

I had suggested, recommended, encouraged him to take his electric 'jazzy-type' chair/scooter along, as it would not be much fun to sit on the sidelines/benches watching, instead of actually going, doing, enjoying the sights and scenery.  But he was hugely anxious about driving all the way to Mars with the chair on the lift attached to the back of the vehicle. And certain that he would not be allowed to take it on an airplane (the so alarmed about the expense of flying - that was not an option). But cooler heads prevailed and he decided that 'yes', he could/would drive 1,000 miles on the interstate with the chair bouncing and jouncing  precariously on the back.

We left home at about 12:30 on Friday, as soon as I could get home from work and get loaded up. We could not even get to the interstate without having to stop for food. Veering off through the parking lot of the Chic-O-Lay for sandwiches we ate in our laps as we got on the road. I had specifically, repeatedly warned him he was not allowed to get cranky in the car, so I was desperate to get north of metro area before #:00, when I knew all those folks who live/work there would be getting off and out on the roads.We drove until about 7:30, across the better part of three states, stopping someplace in the northern part of North Carolina, between Greensboro and the VA state line.

When he saw motels on the far side of the highway, he veered off I-85, but could not figure how to get to the beds. I commented about seeing a Best Western just up the street, so we ended up there. Amongst a large convention of south east Asians. I  am not sure why there were in town, the desk clerk said something about overflow from a meeting in Greensboro. But they were there en masse, with kids in tow.

I'd been cooped up in a vehicle for seven hours, and was desperate to get some fresh air, do some walking, un-kink my back and legs. But there was something so stinky in the parking lot, I could not stand being out there. A man who is a long-haul truck driver, lives in California, stopped me to ask about the noise in the trees behind the motel. I told him it was cicadas and crickets. He thought it was creepy. Said he had stopped at night along the road in MS, and when it got too quiet he had heard all that noise out in the underbrush, along with blinking lights (probably fire-flies!), and was so un-nerved he got back in his truck and fled.

I'd eaten the other half of my chicken sandwich about 6:00, when I did  not know if the driver was planning to go all the way to Boston without stopping. So I was not hungry when he finally did quit for the day. And he was huffy because I did not want to go to a restaurant and eat a another meal. But after he checked his sugar and found it dangerously low, I offered to go and get him a sandwich. But he decided he should go himself. So there he was: at 9:30 at  night, eating a Big Mac and fries.

I was prepared for sleeping in a small space with a noisy companion. I had my ear plugs and benadryl, so I really slept well. And found out the next day the the driver did not. He reported thinking that he might have gotten an hour's worth or sleep all night. That is what he gets from being so ornery he would not ask me to go out and bring in his breathing machine for him.

I called my brother before we went to sleep, to say that we were somewhere in n. NC and would want to try to see him when we went through Richmond the following day.