1682 miles.

3 days. i could have done it in 2, but that second day…..

thursday the 9th was my packout. what a mess. the guys showed up with a tractir trailer, and there was no way they were going to get it into my little cul de sac. they had to cart all my crap 50 yards or so on a dolly to the street.

while watching this, my sister gave me the odd phone call. and that’s a bad thing. nobody from my family ever calls me. unless it’s bad news. i think it’s a leftover from being stationed overseas. for so long i have been unreachable. my dad had to go into the hospital. the stint he had put in a year or so ago just wasn’t doing the job. double bypass. kinda put the kybosh on my plans of just driving up on the weekend and watching a sooners game. i had to tell my sister i was moving. she claimed she’d keep it a secret. she promptly told my mom. now, i’m not going to narc my sister out, but her initials are ‘jennifer’.

friday (the 10th) afternoon, my work did a little bbq lunch for me at work. they catered in. it was way more than i expected to tell you the truth. way more than i wanted.

friday night, my tkd school sent me off with dinner at damons. it was an awesome steak. and i think more people actually came to this than did my work sendoff. now, somebody decided it was my birthday. and it was not. i heard a rumor that it might be my birthday and threatened to pull out the driver’s license to prove it.

i got the wait staff singing happy birthday to me anyway.

so i was 21 again! and had my first legal beer again.

i’m not going to narc the person out who set it all up, but his initials are ‘michael visitacion’

whole lotta not narc’n.

i stayed the night my last night in maryland at chiens palace. bout damn time i used my sleeping bag. i slept in. i planned to leave between 6-7 so i could get to nc in time for lunch with jay and sandra.

i woke up at 7:45. i had that, ‘oh my God, i’m late’ hurry about me. i said goodbye to rose, don’/t know where chien got off too, and ran out to my car. i set the trip odometer. and booked.

i went down 3 to 50 east. took 295 south which skirts through a bit of dc, and crossed the woodrow wilson bridge one last time.

hello virginia.

i got onto 495 which is the loop around dc to cross the woodrow wilson. here i took 95 south.

i saw king’s dominion again. i honked and drove right on by.

south of richmond i stopped and got gas, and some gatorade. then 85 branched off and headed to the west a little. and to my lunch with the gwynns.

hello north carolina.

i went through chapell hill and honked & waved at jamaal. he didn’t wave back. so i kept going. i was late after all.

then i played phone tag with jay for an hour. i had my stereo up and couldn’t hear the phone. he had his vibe on. and well, i guess he just didn’t want to answer the phone.

turns out that jay and sandra had taken their two kids to some amusement park near concord mills mall. little liam and ellie were enjoying it, so my hour tardiness gave liam another hour of fun. he was happy.

we had lunch at exit 49a in charlotte. don pablo’s restaurant. jay picked.

then i said goodbye, and got back on the road.

hello south carolina.

the little cut that 85 makes through sc is so short. i think it’s near 100 miles. maybe a little more. i decided to drive all the way through without stopping.

no such luck.

somebody had some bad luck. they had traffic in 85 completely stopped while they landed the chopper on the pavement to take the guy away.

i never did see the vehicle. but the horse trailer was mangled. hope he was ok.

i had a good time for the half hour sitting on the side of the road talking to other travellers. there was a bus 4-5 cars behind me. it was full of an atherns, georgia youth soccer camp. so all of these 15-18 year olds were busy trying to dodge their coaches, and get closer to the accident.

they had to sprint back to the bus when they finally let traffic go.

hello georgia. i stopped at atlanta for the night. i was an hour and a hald late. it was dusk, and i wanted to get news on ivan. i had heard that he was going to hit the keys saturday morning, and i thought he might affect my travel route.

i stayed at a la quinta inn on the northwest side of atlanta. there was no denny’s.

i slept til 8:30

more tomorrow. i have the pics downloaded, but my photoshop is not on my laptop, so i won’t post them til i get my home pc fired up. nice pics.