Pawn Takes Bishop

Pawn Takes Bishop

The Job at Wilsons only lasted one day. I convinced myself writing this blog, that staying there even temporarily was counterproductive. It would prevent me from looking for better work if I committed to stay on rather than end it before it began. If Chuck had gone ahead and signed me up with the proper tax forms as an employee, I would have felt honor bound to give two weeks notice. In four weeks, working at Wilsons, I might be laid off simply because I finished the bricks. He certainly seemed to have little interest in me helping out with plant related things. His nursery after all, is a fruit stand that murders plants, not nurtures them.

So then. Today I started again, with 6 copies of my resume I set out to find every nursery in the vicinity and make a call on the owner. This was in part hobbled by the fact the jeep is parked until next Monday.



Robert came to me and warned that he had checked the engine, and that it had a blown head gasket. He knows mechanics and can fix it cheaply, but not until his next day off on Monday. Until then, driving it is a risk, one I can't afford to take. Blowing an engine right now would blow a lot more things. Transportation. Vehicle ownership. A thing to call my home when all other homes are gone. The damned Jeepney Driver VII is suffering from a mental break down. Head gasket blown. It truly is a crazy jeep now.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 





Susan managed to poison herself with an Oreo cookie cheese cake, which she only took a single bite from. But it was enough to totally mess her stomach up. She is very intolerant of chemicals in processed foods. All day she was nauseous, but still managed to haul me to three different nurseries in her fuel hybrid car. We also saw a historic oak that sat at the edge of a giant soy bean field, where the beans stretched for miles along the river bottom next to beautiful rolling wooded hills filled with deer. The tree was massively old and twisted. Did I take a picture? No, I forget to do that a lot a key moments in the day. Just picture in your mind a Tree Ent that doesn't move any longer. That was the tree.

One of the three nurseries I cold called upon seemed to give me some hope of consideration. Dave, the owner seemed impressed by my knowledge, and I sort of showed off a bit by helping a customer with answers his own staff lacked knowledge about. Will it work into a job? I wish I had Dorothy's silver slippers right now. Then I could say definitively yes. (Though gardening in silver slippers may look a little queer, at least the commute home would be easier when I commanded them to fly me.)

Sean was meanwhile going to his first attempt to work at the Wet Branch Saloon or whatever the name of the place is. He borrowed a suit from Grant, was given a proper introduction by Noah and Robert, so it was sort of a household wide effort to get him on in the Family business. In this case the family doesn't own the business, just they all seem to work for it. He met "Chef" the man with power to hire and fire and was given an interview for early next week. Tuesday I think I heard. No wait, NEWS FLASH... Robert and Noah just returned and Sean is hired. That is good news. Now at least one of us is employed.

• Sean and I played chess this evening and made a list of equipment we will need for our welding business. Its a wish list of course, but we are planning it ... HARD. We are going to get rich fixing hitches and broken farm implements.     Sounds as likely a way as any of making a living. When I get money this time I plan to weld my piggy bank shut!

 Sean, Barnaby, Kodiak and Noah's Elbow

Wilsons Nursery, a tale of 1000 bricks....

Wilson's Nursery, a Tale of 1000 Bricks...

The first day of work at a new Establishment should not go quite like it did. When I go to work for a Nursery I expect them to behave differently I suppose. This is Wilsons Nursery

 
 
 
 




which I was supposed to start work at yesterday, but due to heavy rains I was told to stay home. Chuck also requested I laquor the brick I had as a sample that he hopes to in the near future laser engrave. (That and 999 others give or take.) Today I came in with a perfect brick, covered in a clear polymer glaze that was pure and smooth and clear as frozen mountain ice on a beer can commercial.

He looked at it, put it  aside and handed me 4 more and a bag with a body grinder. "Sand some of these off." He said. "We will take them to the Boy Scouts this afternoon to see how they laser engrave. They have a laser."

Gee, all we had in Cub Scouts were silver rings and pocket knives with two blades. Its a well armed troop. They actually have two lasers. I am guessing that the Girls Scouts can only counter with light sabers.

I went to work and soon had one brick sanded on all 6 sides, another on the top and bottom. "That is enough on finishing for now." Chuck took the pile of bricks. I will go see them today."

"I thought you wanted me to come along since I'm engraving the bricks." I said.

But apparently he had other ideas.

"What about me filling out paperwork for w2s?" I had my passport ready as is the usual document to cut through the pre-employment paperwork quickly.

"Naw! I haven't time for paperwork." he replied as though it was of little import. "I trust your a citizen."

OK. Now I know we are welcoming illegals with open arms, but as an employer, failure to fill out IRS documentation is a serious infraction of the law, and made me think this job is phony baloney some how. The usual way its done is fake documentation, not skipping the whole process as though it was his word to pay me, mine that I was legal. I begin to eye the exit.

"Just take care of these plants."  he pointed to a tangled mess of weedy yellowed over bloomed and under blooming perennials in two large rows behind the building (A former Sonic Restaurant if I ever saw one) "Pull out the dead buckets and recycle the dirt in those big silver bins over there."

He promptly left for other business and I stood in the sun doing what the plants needed, weeding, a quick funeral, a lot of pity.
The fertilizer he pipes in on them daily is a concoction illegal in Europe for the last 20 years, 20-20-20, a liquid quick release nitrogen, full of pollutants and salts, bad for plants and bad for the ground water. I was not tasked with watering, only seeing the results of bad food on nursery plants, those supposedly for sale to the public. Its hard to tell, since the place looks far more like a fruit and vegetable stand than a nursery. There are some plants, yes, a small greenhouse, also yes, but more of the enterprise seems adapted around selling fruit and sand blasting rounded rocks. Bricks, that was a new line he wants to expand into. How about expanding into growing plants? I wondered.

I met Augie who was doing the watering and is an expert in animal husbandry and fixing Canadian imported BMWs. We had an interesting talk and I found him down right likable. He has a pony tail on the top of his head, sun glasses, a beard and a lot of tattoos. Mid day he called me that he had knocked the ladder down and was stuck on the roof. I offered to lift it to him for a dollar. Might as well make some money this day. I can't say as I trust Chuck to follow through with 40 hours a week at $10, not an unwieldy sum for even a small nursery in a good location (which it is).

Hidden some place in this Nursery Photograph, you will find a hidden plant. See if you can spot it....



















So I spent the day trying to inform the few customers I saw how to grow plants, the simplest basics, and they were amazed, like they found a gold ring in a box of cracker jacks and it wasn't made of plastic.

This Nursery needs serious help. I mean this fruit stand is doing a booming business but is murdering plants...I mean, well its both.

I returned to find Sean literally bored out of his mind. "What did you do all day? " I asked.

"I killed pirates and took over a city." he replied tiredly.

All the PC gamers will note he is a normal on-line junkie like the rest of his generation seem to be. Tonight he goes in to the The Flat Branch Pub to seek employment from "Chef" the head... dare I guess his work? I hope he gets a job, even if it sucks and he turns it down. He needs some diversion. We both do. Money would divert us just fine wherever it came from.

Missouri Hospitality

Missouri Hospitality

One cannot help but notice some similarities (and differences) between Arkansas and Missouri in the layout of the land (similar) to the degree of Unionism and Road Production (different), to other intangibles I am still mulling over. I grew up in Arkansas and hear many similar night time noises in Missouri, smell the air and get a sense of childhood, and yet it feels more...shall I say it, Yankee? The people seem a bit more northern, a bit more liberal, yet hang on to many of the aspects of rural life as it permeates both states peoples. In Arkansas one feels as though the people of the city just got there and haven't shed their country ways. In Missouri it feels more like Alexandria Virginia was uprooted and part of it's population resettled here, including the health food stores, the College nightlife pubs, the eateries and the massive structure around disposing of garbage.

One cannot merely throw away trash, nor even discard a bag of recycled trash. One must haul it to public bins and sort the plastic paper and glass, take other reusable jugs in to local stores and buy water at 25 cents a gallon out of vending machines that pour it in your jug, and the food waste?...well that's between you and your conscience. Pay a garbage man a fat fee or compost it in the back yard.. To do all that trash juggling takes a filing system during evening meal clean up, with one pile of food waste going one way, the plastics and papers two others, and living under the constant fear of letting anything not scheduled to going in the real trash can.

But one can't complain the place isn't tidy and well kept can they? The other unusual shortage I found in the town of Columbia is a complete lack of fly swatters. Our first week here saw outside construction on Susan's house, putting new siding on the older trim and wood surfaces. Many flies found their way in the doors till the house was all abuzz. I asked Susan if she had a fly swatter and she replied no she did not. I figured it a friendly gesture to pick one up for her, so the next time I was out and about all the round-abouts they have at every other street corner here, I stopped in to a dollar store. Sorry, fresh out. Target...nope out of stock. Groceries? Half a store full of vitamin shelves, a section for incense, but no fly swatters. I was beginning to think there was some sort of local cultural live-and-let-live attitude about flies in this state. Susan then explained to me this was the reason she had no fly swatter, she couldn't find one either. Hmmm. I did not give up. Finally at a Tractor supply place on the edge of town, in the horse care section I found fly swatters 2 for two dollars. I bought four. Sean and I got to work in an orgy of cephalopod murdering frenzy; the flies literally dropped like flies. We broke one swatter and kept on going, ten, twenty, a hundred, it was an insect Armageddon. It was good to sit down to a meal again without looking for enemy aircraft coming in for a strafing run.

Its family night and the group gathers for some Dungeons and Dragons board game played till the wee hours of the night. Left is Nikki, (that is Susan's son Robert's Girlfriend. Susan sits in the middle with Bob to the right in the red vestments robe.

On the other side of the table are my nephew Noah left and Robert, Susan's son on the right. Noah is the Game master, the others the characters in their


imaginary world of non-computer generated play. Its funny to think of Dungeons and Dragons as old fashioned, but that it is these days. Getting the kids away from the computer to socialize is harder than it was in the days of the TV. Everyone is off in their own virtual world from their phone to their game system to their PC. Interacting with fellow human beings is becoming a rarer and rarer evening pastime. Of course, I sit here typing on a computer giving others advise on social interaction. Duh.

So they play D and D while Sean and I enjoy a bit of quiet time in our room which is a bit over-crowded with our stuff right now. I feel like I am urban camping to be honest, but with a very nice set of Park Rangers to care for us as we sack out.

My bed is a army cot with several quilts and a bag of dirty laundry as a pillow. It is really quite comfortable though I tend to step on Sean when I get out of bed at night to powder my nose. He sleeps on the air mattress to the right of the bunk. That's about the size of it; small and a bit cramped at the moment. Sean got two job interviews today while I tried to coat a brick with plastic polymer. This job at the nursery is beginning to give me room for doubts about the sanity of the project. 1000 bricks. Polymer that is finicky and difficult. A laser to cut brick with. Am I in an episode of Buck Rogers and don't realize I'm fictional?

To the right Robert and Noah are taking Sean to a shooting range where he is learning to fire his Grandfathers Mausberg 500 which is a fancy name for a Sears Shotgun, as well they fired other exotically numbered firearms with tough sounding military names. They are apparently expert dirt shooters since the target range has no targets to shoot at. There are plans in the works for a big wild Farrell pig hunt this fall. If Sean is as lucky at hunting as he is at fishing, we will have piglet giblets at least for one breakfast after that.

Angels have Lyres, so do wives of Fishermen...

Angels have Lyres, so do wives of Fishermen...

We have been staying with Susan now for a week. So far I have found a job after several interviews, but it has its quirks. First of all I applied to work as a Nurseryman, and the boss at Wilson's nursery wants to hire me as an engraver. He wants to start engraving bricks of all things, and finds his sand blasting system (for rocks) not up to the task.

I have already done some research into this and find that laser engraving, polymer filling is the way to create this right, and wonder at what I am getting in to. He wants 1000 bricks done this way. If I pull this off it will be a miracle.

Sean has a line at working a high class restaurant in town though they have not interviewed him. Still, he knows well three of it's employees Robert (Susan's son) Noah, (Sean's Cousin) and Grant (A housemate of the other two staying here). It seems a referral this way at this business is usually a shoe-in.

Before either of us jump back into the work-a-day world again, I suggested to Sean we take a fishing trip. Sean has never in his life fished, and that is much of what Missourians and Arkansans do. So we really aught to learn if nothing else to shed a bit of our Greenhorn reputations.

We mapped out a nearby lake with camping and set off for it Saturday Morning. This was our camp

Once we set up we set off for the lake, equipped with recently purchased rods, cans of worms, hooks and bobs, looking for the stupidest fish we could find to mug. The morning was hot and we found that the fish were very clever at removing our worm and leaving the hook. It seems they had done this before. We continued to try, moving to a boat dock that was unoccupied. Another old man set up a few feet from the dock where he proceeded to catch fish about every five minutes while we just fed them our worms.




Catching them would require greater wiles on our part, so I took a cherry flavored jelly bean, adding it to my bait to catch some young fish with a sweet tooth unawares. Eventually this ridiculous strategy caught me this Nar Whale pictured here. He fought the good fight, but was no match for a completely novice fishermen like myself.

As you can see the size and ferocity of the leviathan are of an extreme nature, and I am doing all I can to keep the pipe in my mouth as I lift him over the railing. We placed the fish in a bucket of water, hoping to find more stupid fish to make a meal. I figure this one would not go very far in a skillet by himself. Sean was having no luck at all in his efforts. I suggested we use sticks of dynamite, but he would not hear of it. It was a fishing pole or nothing.

Sean would not give it up however. He did make good friends with a turtle whom stole his bait no fewer than ten times. We tried up the lake and then back down, and decided to go back to the tackle store for smaller hooks and better bait. The fish had already eaten most of our worms and were growing tired of the lack of variety. We hoped to challenge them better with a more subtle hook as well. We also picked up half a case of beer, just in case we found any beer drinking bear at camp we could throw them down and save ourselves.

We came across this portion of swampy looking bank and set up, thinking many fish might like living around underwater tree branches. It was past 6pm and I was beginning to worry Sean might fail at dumb fish catching and go home frustrated. I had already released my Nar Whale, not wanting to have to kill and gut it, and besides I bought hot dogs and sausage with the beer. I can't eat catfish. They are too cute to eat. (And taste kinda mucky).

Sean had a close encounter, then a catch. We identified it as a deadly South American Piranha that must have stowed away in the fish bowl of a recent illegal immigrant. Not wanting to eat illegal food in the country without papers, we let it go for ICE to round up later.

Satisfied with at least finding a use for fishing rods besides tangling line, we headed back to our camp. Luckily we found no beer drinking bears waiting for us, so we decided to lighten our load by a few ounces so as not to over tax the Jeep's transmission.

Sean soon was wandering around the camp singing Bavarian Beer Drinking tunes and dancing in lederhosen. I shed my shirt to demonstrate I too was of white Germanic Heritage. Ya, Ve ist der Master race when it comes to drinking cheap beer. Good fortune shown upon us again, (or perhaps it was Sean's I-phone and it's flash attachment) and in a nearby stream I caught an entire school of red checker fish. The black ones however eluded me, thus I had only the red ones. Since one has to have both red and black ones to get them to play checkers together, I decided that since I had given the Narwhale and the Piranha clemency, it was high time I was rewarded. Thus I fried them up with chili, hot sauce and hot dogs.

Sean watched with keen interest as I prepared our meal, taking only a moment or two to find a comfortable place to watch and wait for dinner.

After a good meal, we discussed getting up at 5 am and going back to catch more fish. We agreed this was the plan and squeezed into our tent. During the night raccoons raised our camp and I had to chase them off. I put away the trash they were after and squeezed back into the tent, an experience for me much like being born. By 4 am it was raining. Morning came finding us unwilling to crawl out of our bunks to almost 7 am. It was wet and not exactly great fishing weather (at least not from the catching point of view as far as comfort.) Sean had a chill so we decided to break camp and cash in our fish and chips.

Missouri Shows me... a good time (so far)

I woke to a heavy rain that came down relentlessly through the night. The neighbor in the motel room next door was having a drama of some kind...dare I make a guess, a marital dysfunction? A beautiful young girl of about 30 kept arriving in a red van at his room, sitting in the parking lot and crying, then going in, then leaving again, over and over again through the night. He would then get agitated, get on his cell phone and pace back in front of his (and my) door talking in loud tones that I made effort not to listen to. By morning with the rain it was a somber night and morning of melodrama.

Sean and I traveled on with coffee and rain and a bleak prospect of anything today but travels. "What would I write about tonight?" I wondered. Surely nothing adventurous can happen in such cold damp conditions, and it being mid July that seems hardly a fair deal on the weather end of it. I spoke a bit harshly with God about all the rain. Sorry God, as usual I failed to see the big picture.

We stopped off about 11:30 to eat lunch at a country café and had the best meal I have eaten in days. The waitress was friendly and I had time to read the local add magazine for the Southern Missouri farming community. Quite enlightening things could be found there such as the price of tractors, what farms were up for auction and the cost of a gallon of hand picked blackberries.

On a lark, based only on a sign from the freeway we decided to seek out an antique shop we saw advertised in a small town called Hermann, about 15 miles south of I 70. I was expecting some dusty little shop between fruit and vegetable stands but instead discovered the most unusual little town I never expected to see.

This is the Hamlet of Hermann, with German Immigrant ancestors on the banks of the Missouri River, it is a hub of  cultural activities including live music, breweries, wineries, sausage makers, and many antique shops. We were blown away by the out of place looking European style architectures, the quaint decorations and best of all, on street free parking with no pesky meters.

Sean and I entered several shops finding a wealth in curiosities, some quite affordable. I resisted the temptation to buy very much and settled on a wooden duck covered in brass

 and copper that went for $7. Sean bought a belt buckle that had a pro Gun message. He is turning in to quite the enthusiast for redneck philosophies. He will fit in well in the Ozarks.

 We toured the town and I was most impressed by the courthouse which had it's own dome like a State Capital and sat imposingly on the highest hill like a castle overlooking it's serfdom. Finishing off the trip we made it to Columbia where we met Susan, my Nephew Noah, Susan's partner Bob and others to begin phase II of the trip, actual relocation. Sean put in applications on Saturday and Sunday, and I have an interview this Monday at a local nursery that grows tomatoes. I will keep you informed as to the progress. So far things have all fallen into place. Lord, please keep my luck running good.

Mayo and Burgers...NO!

Mayo and Burgers...NO!

What is it lately with Burger chains putting Mayonnaise on all their hamburgers as the default condiment? Twice today I had to scrap the stuff off my sandwiches in two different national chains...it just isn't American. Either leave off all condiments or mustard or catsup...but NOT mayo. Its a French food conspiracy, I am sure of it.

Today was Day three of the trip and we made it across Kentucky, Indiana and into Illinois. I would have traveled slower but for two things. Thing one, it rained like a biblical flood, and thing two, much of Western Kentucky, all of Indiana and what I've seen so far of Illinois are long endless expanses of corn fields unbroken by so much as a frustrated Scarecrow. For variety the farmers would treat us once in a while to a field of soy beans to break the monotony, but elsewise it was an all cornfield holiday.

Backing up to the morning, we did take a side trip to Boonesboro, as I had suggested in the last entry. We arrived early with great excitement seeing the fort. I was a bit surprised to read it had been erected in 1981 with all the names enshrined of the Chamber of Commerce who paid for construction. I was further dismayed when I read the sign by the entry. The fort was not there to keep out Indians, unless they each had with them six dollars.

We peeked in and decided we could see in about as well as we could wander around and held back the temptation to lose 12 bucks to Daniel Boone's sneaky descendants.

On we drove through the deluge
trying to see the road and not at all interested in the passing cornfields. Into Indiana and things got only worse. The distance between stops got farther and farther and the road was so-o-o-o boring my narcolepsy kicked in. For a while I let Tokie drive, but this only made Sean nervous.

So instead once again I pulled over and took a quick nap to forgo a close encounter with a passing truck or plowing out some hapless farmer's cornfield with my out of control asleep at the switch driving. Refreshed and with the rain finally starting to stop, we pressed on across boring Indiana.

I would write the entire state off as a loss but for one accidental discovery, off the road, not advertised that we found at mile marker 25 of Interstate 64, just north of Evansville.

It was HIPPS Nursery, the finest attraction in all of Southern Indiana by my reckoning. Never has there been a plant farm with quite so pixilated a tilt to it. This greeted us at the gate. It only got better and better as we ventured in.





The security for the place was provided for by a live chicken.



The front gate was guarded as well by a life-sized hallucination.                                               

Travel Begins Marriage Ends

Travels When Life Unravels

On my 58th Birthday my wife of 27 years kicked me out of the house. (Well, to be honest she only nagged me until I decided to leave). Along with my youngest Son Sean, we set out in a 1994 Jeep Sahara named JEEPNEY DRIVER VII on a cross country adventure to unknown ends. This is that story in a diary as it happens. With a bit of cash and a few friends waiting for us in Missouri and Arkansas, we overloaded the Jeep, put the remainder of our things in storage, quit our jobs (I quit 2, Sean quit one) and set out like Gypsies to a life of adventure and uncertainty. In the footsteps of Jack Kerouac we have little but our wits and an old clunker of an auto, but our hearts are free and our mission ambiguous.




This is Emma, who was the catalyst for this peculiar behavior. I don't fault her for wanting out of our marriage, only for her preferring money and things to people. I happen to be the latter, and therefore will never be close to her heart. I wish her the best in finding a rich man who loves shopping and paying her bills. I could never keep up with those debts, even working two jobs. She also fancies on staying young and beautiful eternally. I on the other hand accept I'm an old, over-weight curmudgeon and not likely to ever be young again as a given.

This is my son Sean who is sharing my adventures. He is 20 years old, has some talent as a welder and is as loyal a comrade as Emma is a fickle one. He is up for a change from his drudgery job, and doesn't fancy staying behind with his Mom. (who like me, he loves) She of late is a bicycle short of a deck of cards. He is my go-to guy when it comes to problem solving. We plan to one day start a welding business together. He prefabricated the carry-cage on the top of Jeepney Driver VII, and whenever I can't figure out this damned computer, assists me in my out-of-date ways.

Our travels began on July 7th 2015 from Fairfax County Virginia. Our route takes us through the wilds of West Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois and Missouri. From there into the Ozark Mountains and beyond. It is unusually wet for this time of year and rain has plagued our departure. The first day however was dry and boiling hot.

Sean and I share the JEEPNEY DRIVER VII with a strange little figment of my imagination known as "Tokie the Taco Lizard". Tokie predicts the future when he is in the mood. He also attracts lightning (and rain storms) when taken out in the open, so he remains concealed for the most part. Another way I can make it pour down rain is to uncover the jeep and be unable by reasons of driving it to cover it back. That would cure a seven year drought in the Sahara should I actually take the top all the way off. I call it the "Convertible Jeep Curse." It has plagued me now for 15 years.

Our first day out was for the most part uneventful. We never even made it out of Virginia, though did come within a few miles of the line. We slept in the mountains in a Motel build in the 1950s but priced in the 2020s. Still, it was nice to have a cool room after a hot July day's drive without air conditioning in half a dozen traffic jams.

By morning the rain began. We had breakfast at a Hardies in Sulfur Springs, just the other side of the West Virginia Line. Its a nice little town where all the old timers meet for breakfast and greet grandchildren and children coming in for the same . They talk about pensions and Baseball games and sip piping hot coffee over high calorie high cholesterol tater tots and eggs. You can get easily into town by an off ramp to the right on the interstate. But to get out of town you have to take the ten mile scenic view back through the tiny berg and around a few more horse farms and cow fields.

The driving in a rain takes a bit of the hot out of it, but also adds a melancholy mood to the mountain's covering. The low laying clouds cling to the dense primeval looking forests along impossibly steep climbing slopes. I am keen to find a nice carved open hill to find some fossils from the Pennsylvania Period of the Carboniferous Era. Fossil ferns, giant Dragon Flies the size of eagles, and spiders the size of house cats once adorned these places. Now they are entombed with their bodies cast in fossil stone for the looking and retrieval.

After several hours of steep up hill and break neck down hill rides we came to a perfect hillside. Fossil hunting in the rain when it is hot may be a lot like the former weather of the epoch, but remains unpleasant weather for fossil hunting. Right away we spotted stems and leaves in shale, and perfect chunks of unburned coal lying about like unmade diamonds.

Taking a few specimens we high tailed it back to the car, wishing we had better weather, a camp ground and a portable air conditioner at our disposal.

These may not look like much, but for half an hours looking they were nice souvenirs. They are a couple of fern leaves, a piece of petrified wood and a nice imprint of the side of a stem. Sorry, we failed to find any giant spider fossils. Perhaps if we had hunted for a few more minutes in the rain.

WE continued on through Charleston, capital of the state which in my opinion has the prettiest capitol dome of any I ever saw. It is gilded in gold leaf and covered in an explosion of traditional architectural styles that leave nobody in history out of the picture. If ever they decide to sell it, it would make a great second Vatican for the Pope.

I suffer from narcolepsy, which causes me to suddenly fall asleep with very little (if any) warning. To combat this I must take frequent short naps of ten to 30 minutes to stay off the sudden onset of the condition while driving. Sean is understanding, but as yet is too green at driving a clutch to help out. So he plays on his phone various computer games while we park and I snooze.

We made a turn off to find an emergency rest stop during an attack near the Kentucky line and suddenly found ourselves in Ohio. I found a small church and planned to sleep it off in the parking lot, but was surprised to discover the property totally fenced in and a locked gate. Hmmm, never happen with a catholic church, I'm sure. We parked outside the gate and I got the necessary Z's to continue on. Back into West Virginia and over into Kentucky we traveled. We discussed seeing Boonesboro tomorrow. I loved the TV show Daniel Boone as a child. Besides, we failed to see any of Stonewall Jackson's sights due to bad timing the day before.

Tonight is my first night with Internet, so, at this Motel I am beginning the blog. The idea was Sylvia's, my former choir director and long time friend. Hi Sylvia. Hi Bob. So far so good.