Pilot's Log

( Family Health Problems That May Be TMI )

The crisis isn't as awful as I'd dreaded, but it is still fairly awful. Nobody should spend a holiday Sunday this way.

PS: Mum and I went back to see Dad around quarter to Ten this evening. He went through his surgery well enough, but is staying at the hospital overnight. And Mum and I will go back tomorrow to (if all goes well), pick him up and take him home to convalesce.

Finally got to mix up and drink the packet my sister gave me for Christmas.

It's the Pan-Galactic Cocoa Blaster...like having your brains beaten out by a warm fudge brownie wrapped around a large gold brick.

Whoa.

Overnight I dreamt I was forty years in the past, drinking something I'd never had before in a pub with Ringo Starr, while a news story about a hippie music festival was playing on all the place's TV sets. Why Ringo? I'm not sure. GPS doesn't work temporally. Anybody know if Rand-McNally makes a time-travel atlas? The chronostream charts I have are no longer accurate enough to use with any reliability.

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Cake. Chocolate Macaroon Bundt with confectioner's powdered sugar on top rather than frosting. Nicely cool. A steamy mug of cafe au creme (or that new Vanilla drink that General Foods makes) to go with it.

I wrote the makers of Ace energy drink about merchandise. They e-mailed me back that they are sending me some bumper stickers. :)

The Jeff City Big Lots has flats of these (regular and diet) now so I decided to buy a can of each today. I'm drinking the regular now...I'll let Dad try out the diet stuff.
It tastes like something between orange soda and Ale-8 with some Mountain Dew-esque hints to it.
I have to confess I bought these for the cans, tho'.

FP

Yeah, I know I said I probably wouldn't post, but I have use of my uncle's compy (which is kinda nice) and a little time for reflection before dinner.

I left Tennessee at around 9:30 PM and arrived here in Pasco County sometime after noon. Yes, I drove overnight. I took "power naps" at Rest Area stops between legs, three in all, all in Georgia.

Weirdness...not ten miles after I told myself on the stretch between Athens and Chattanooga that it looked like prime deer country--I saw a family of whitetails standing alongside a wooded median, well away, from the pavement, but it still kinda freaked me.

I blew through Atlanta at just after 2 AM, which is a great time to do it. With all the trucks on the bypass it is a breeze going into downtown...so long as you remember not to gawk at the architecture.

Songs I heard on the radio that I really needed to hear:
The Monkees--I'm Not Your Stepping Stone
The Eagles--One of These Nights
Glen Frey--Smuggler's Blues
The Doors--Moonlight Drive (last time I heard this, it was well over 20 years ago and I was making a similar trip through Georgia, as a passenger)
Diana Ross--Touch Me In The Morning (another song about leaving and being left. loved it before I knew the lyrics. But the lyrics are a killer)
38 Special--Caught Up In You
Average White Band--Pick Up the Pieces
ELO--Sweet Talkin' Woman

I hit dense fog at Macon and it stayed with me through to King Frog. The pavement near Valdosta is being replaced, and the temporary pavement has a weird oscillation--not washboard, but washboard that is out of sync side to side. Driving it is like bob-and-weave with a boxer--or being forced to dance disco.

I like my victories to taste like the free orange juice they serve at the Florida State Line Welcome Center: sweet with the tinge of acid, and a hint of pulp, but not so much that you can't just down it all in one gulp. Didn't mean for that to rhyme but so what?

Got off the Interstate at Exit 414 and took US 41 the rest of the way. In this manner, I could actually see the Florida I lived in and remember. Not resorts and touristy spots...the ambition and decadence and strange juxtapositions. Probably won't take this route back north, tho'--too much construction in Inverness and Brooksville.