Southern Exposure

After three days of blessedly uneventful travel, we have safely arrived at our hotel in Clearwater, Florida.  We are happy to be here, and we both agree that we do not care if we ever sit in the truck again!

Thanks to help from Lindsay, our packing of the trailer was almost completed by the end of the day on Thursday.  Rick built a rack in the trailer so we were able to load both of our "trikes" as well as all of the other things that I had assembled in the living room, basement, and garage.  For two weeks, as I added more and more to the stacks like a busy ant building an ant hill, Rick kept saying, "It's not all going to fit.  Figure out what you want to leave behind, because it won't all fit in that little trailer."  As it was, thanks to his building skills and Lindsay's fantastic spatial acuity, everything fit with room to spare!

Our adventure started on Friday after Rick got out of his last day of school for the semester. We left at approximately 4:00 p.m., traveling down Highway 41 on our way to Hwy. 151.  I started the driving since Rick was tired from school and needed a little time to "unwind."  The construction through Oshkosh was a bit white-knuckle, but I never hit anything nor did I scrape the truck!  I found that driving the truck with only a 12-foot trailer attached was a breeze compared to the 34- foot trailer we used to pull.  As we got closer to Madison, Rick took over the driving. My limit of driving in one stretch is 2.5 - 3 hours tops.  By that time my shoulders ache and my leg gets cramped.  Cruise control is great, but holding legs in a position to slam on the breaks, if need be,  can be tiresome.  As we crossed into Illinois, I resisted the urge to say, "Are we there yet?"  I thought that Rick might use me as a hood ornament if I did! Our dinner consisted of Subway sandwiches on the road. 

One of the smartest things that we did was to purchase an electronic cooler that plugs into the truck.  I wanted to keep my medication cold, and the cooler afforded us the luxury of adding sandwiches, yogurt, fresh fruit, and bottled water.  In the evening we brought the cooler into the motel and plugged it in to keep things fresh.  As temperatures climbed near 100 degrees this trip, having the cooler in the truck allowed us to stop, park for a bit, and not have to worry about my insulin going bad on me. 

We wanted to make progress through half of Illinois, so we pushed on until we reached Toscala which is south of Campaigne, IL.  Rick drove the last part, for which I am thankful.  Since my cataract surgery, my eyes are not the greatest on the highway after dark. (Dang, that sentence really makes me sound old!) I don't remember much of the hotel other than Rick complained that it smelled "old."  I hit the pillow and was too tired to even roll over the entire night.  Even Rick's snoring could not disturb me, and the deep sleep actually gave me renewed energy in the morning. 

We checked with Stephanie on that first drive down to get an updated national forecast.  The good Lord was with us because He sent the rain to the north and to the far south, leaving the middle of the country high and dry... no tornadoes, no gully-washers, nothing but sunshine and warm temperatures.  Naturally, since we have just frozen through the Wisconsin spring, we encountered temperatures on the way down that the locals said they "usually don't get until late July or August." Just our luck.  Montgomery, Alabama, reached 100 degrees.

Saturday we planned to drive from the middle of Illinois to southern Alabama, an 11 1/2 hour drive by the time we were done.  I started the drive through probably the most boring countryside I have seen since we once drove through Nebraska. (One can only tolerate wheat fields for so long...) Not that the greenery and countryside were not beautiful; they were.  But once again after seeing the same plowed fields and groves of trees for five hours in a row gets to be almost hypnotic.  I also have to admit that I never knew a state could be so long.  Illinois seemed to go on forever!  Even at 72 miles an hour (sh-h-h, don't tell), the hours dragged on. 

At one point after crossing into Alabama, we finally came upon a new sight: cows grazing in the field.  Rick was driving.  I said, "Look, genuine Alabama cows!"  Can you tell that the plowed fields were REALLY starting to get old?  We continued on, and about a minute later, we approached a truck that was pulling a livestock trailer.  Hanging out of the back of the trailer was a long, silky tail. 

"What is that?" Rick asked.

"That," I said, "is a genuine Alabama horse's ass!" And it was.  That part of the equine anatomy is all that we could see sticking out of the back of the trailer.  We decided to not follow too closely.

Today was a day of just anticipating the end of the journey.  I drove the first three hours, traveling through the panhandle of Florida before we started to head south.  We spent the time trying to anticipate what the house would look like.  Would any of the bushes be cut down?  Did the lawn service really mow the back lawn, or would it be three feet high?  Did the family really clean out the house, or would we have to move the previous owner's things OUT before we could move in?  What would we do first (after I removed the purple drapes, of course).  And most importantly, would greed win over lazy?

That last question had to do with the concrete and "broken" tile-insert patio table and benches that were in the back yard. They weigh a ton, and one of the benches had two broken legs, so it was lying on the ground.  Jennifer, our realtor, told us that those tables were really very expensive, so the question was this: would the owner's daughters be too lazy to drag the table out to a sale, or would greed overtake them enough to put in the effort? 

Today seemed to be never-ending even though it was one of our shorter travel days.  We got "lost" twice, so thank heavens for the Garmin.  Lindsay and Christopher borrowed it once, and Lindsay named the voice "Victoria" because she said the voice sounds the way a person named Victoria would talk.  So Victoria rescued us, and we somehow ended up at this hotel.  When we checked in, the clerk said, "You'll be staying just the one night."  Both Rick and I though, "We certainly hope so!" unless, of course, Gladys turned out to be such a disastrous mess that we would not be able to spend tomorrow night on the premises.

After check in, we left the hotel and had a little "dinner in the park." Publix Grocery store has a deli that makes the best sandwiches, so we bought two sandwiches and drove to a park for a picnic.  The temperatures were about 85 with a beautiful breeze blowing. Fantastic!  Then we drove for our first look at Gladys.  The updated report:

First, the grass has been cut (both front and back yard) and the overgrown bushes on the south side of the house have been cut.  We actually can see the windows on the south side of the house! In the back yard, at least 25 lily-like purplish-pink flowers are growing in various places in the back yard.  Oh, by the way, lazy won.  The table was still in the back yard.

The neighbor has cut down one and a half of our trees (no great loss since the trunk is on our side of the fence and the growth was all leaning over the fence hanging into his yard.)  The back fence looks a little worse for wear, so we will have to talk to the neighbor about that.  We know that he wants to take it down and to build a new one, and as long as he wants to do the work, that is fine with me.  Rick thinks the old one will come down and the new one won't get put up.  Time will tell...

A peek in the windows shows that most of the furniture has been moved out (the pool table has vacated the living room and the piano no longer serenades the geckos in the garage), but an old wing-backed maroon chair (minus the bottom cushion), some pillows, and a big, clunky, cabinet TV set grace the driveway in front of the garage door.  We suspect they left that garbage for us to dispose of. 

We face a tremendous amount of work.  Right now, Gladys looks like she went through 6 rounds in a fist fight 20 years ago, and we are not sure she was a winner.  But I can see the potential, so with our help, dedication, and lots of cash, maybe we can help the old doll win the next round.