Reflections of My Travel

well it was a looooonnnnngggg week. traveled back and forth to anniston all week from wedowee. waking up at six every morning and getting home at nine every night. training was just exhaustive. i feel bad for randal because i know it’s got to be ten times more tiring for him. we also had the added pleasure of having to go to heflin, jacksonville, and talladega to set up equipment and software in the afternoons. but today is a relax day. got to sleep in (seven instead of six) and randal has spent the morning doing stuff with his dad. first they got up on the roof to take down the antenna and add another one. then they started washing cars. randal’s dad has gotten a little pressure washer thing that you can hook a big jug of car wash or wax onto and so they’ve been out playing with that. i love that they are finally getting to spend some good time together. they don’t really talk or anything. but just standing together washing the car is so much. made me smile. kinda like before grandpa moore died. we didn’t go over there to talk to him. we sat with him and watched old westerns and he was so happy to have us there. or playing dominoes with grandma moore. funny how quality bonding is different for everyone. now we are getting ready to head back to anniston (i think we get to ride this time instead of driving ourselves) to meet up with shane and teresa for junior’s belated birthday lunch (dinner). chinese two days in a row. speaking of which, jenny should be getting on a plane about now. i wish i could see her.

After getting so far Friday night, it was decided that we should just go ahead and get to Wedowee. On the way, we stopped at an RV sales lot to look around at some RVs. Dream about how much easier all this travel would be on us if we just lived in one of those. (Although I had never considered how small that would get to live in and how large it would be to drive). We also stopped in Moody, AL to have lunch at Milo’s. According to Randal, a Milo’s hamburger is a big part of the Alabama experience (apparently, it is unheard of to eat there and not drink the tea). Turns out Saturday was to be my day to have some experiences. We stopped at Walmart in Anniston to get some groceries to bring with us. Randal’s mom and dad weren’t expecting us until Sunday evening so we figured if we were already going to be surprising them, we should at least have our own food with us. On the way home, we discovered that there were going to be some races at Hollis Crossroads and some fellows from church were going to be racing. Randal’s dad’s birthday was this past week and we figured it would he would enjoy going to the races. I had the pleasure of experiencing the “redneck 500″ firsthand. And a demolition derby as an added bonus. It was a… um… unique… experience. Randal was happy though because he got to sit with his dad some and that meant a lot to both of them i’m sure.

What a fiasco. We thought that we were going to make Friday’s drive nice and short. Just stop in Indianapolis, where it would be early enough to get some work done, and finish it out over the next couple of days. Well we were sure wrong. We stopped at a few hotels in Indianapolis, but they were all booked up because of the Brickyard 400. So Indianapolis was out. We continued driving south and figured that we would stop in Louisville. Perhaps it would still be early enough to get some work done. When we got to Louisville at 2230, we saw that the hotel parking lots were filled with some beautiful old cars. Turns out there were over 12,000 people in town for a big antique car show. Everything was sold out all the way down to Cave City, they told us. Which is really a shame because if we could’ve found a room anywhere, we would have very much enjoyed seeing the car show. So it goes. So after midnight we finally found a bed in Bowling Green, KY. Almost to Tennessee. So much for a short drive.