Re-visiting Road Trip

Sunday, June 16

The perfect day started with me waking up at regular time, then turning over and going back to sleep...possible on a Sunday morning, because the house (4 apartments) is quiet, as is the neighborhood. The commuters are gone for the weekend and locals are pretty low-keyed on Sunday morning.

Around 10:00 a.m. I got up, threw on yesterday's clothes and headed for the coffee house two doors down. Not to put too fine a point on being a regular, but by the time I reached the counter, my "small coffee to go", was waiting.

The weather was as picture and temperature perfect as it gets for me, so I sat on my front porch to have my coffee and listen to the birds chirp and the people walking by, going and coming from getting their Sunday morning coffee and pastry. There is a Japanese maple in full leaf just beyond my front steps and in front of where I sit on the porch. It gives me privacy and seemingly so too, the people ending a conversation to go on their separate ways, find it a good place to do that.

I finished my coffee and having found the outdoors so peaceful and appealing, I brought out my IKEA easy chair and ottoman, iPad, laptop, a couple of Cottage Style magazines, water, and a coffee table book on Southern Cooking, of which I'd looked at the pretty pictures of lush food, but hadn't read the text. Turns out I could not receive internet signal on the porch, so took the laptop and iPad back inside and that no doubt cinched it being the perfect day.

I was on the porch for 6 hours. It was time outside of time. I went in only to get more water and to get rid of water, then back out to read; book on Nook, a story by an author I'd hadn't read in years but had always enjoyed, the tender stories of a late in life love. This book was about a misbegotten (but not really) trip to Ireland, for that same older couple, Jan Karon, writes so appealingly about.

The text in the Southern Cooking book included a detailed introduction about Southern history and geography and the origins of Southern regional dishes. I can get caught up in people, places, and regional recipes, whether in the Piedmont region of South Carolina or Italy.

I could not have planned a more perfect day.  I have been contemplating what constitutes a perfect day for me. What I am finding, is that the perfect day presents itself without plan or direction, but merely the willingness to see, feel and embrace each day and what it presents as the perfect day. And so it is.

 Now I'm back to enjoying my recent road trip since I figured out how to get my 750 iPad photos onto laptop

so I can use them in this blog.

 Layover in the Nashville airport

Having lunch in Tootsies and listening in great pain

to a really, really bad county singer

It was difficult to image that any place in Nashville, airport or not

that must depend upon a bad singer, EVER to provide entertainment
The "singer" is down at the far end and you can see
the customers are trying to pretend he's not there.
It wasn't as easy as they make it look.

 After a 3 hour layover, now flight is delayed to Greenville, South Carolina

Luggage didn't arrive with us at 7:00 p.m. in Greenville

but next morning when we picked up car at airport, then went to baggage,

our bags were on the 10:30 flight from Baltimore

So off we went

First to see downtown Greenville and Clemson University

The Reedy River and  falls run right through downtown Greenville 
Clemson U. is on the banks of this waterway
http://www.sciway.net/sc-photos/greenville-county/reedy-river.html

Now on our way to Statesville, North Carolina

to have lunch with Betty's sister Donna and brother-in-law Olen

Many of my iPad photos are taken from the car while driving
(make that, riding)

A road trip involves lots of roads and road signs

And in the drive from South Carolina to New York state

 unless you get off the interstate, thruway, turnpike (named different for different states), 

what you see is a ribbon of highway in front and behind, trees on either side and signs and cloudy skies overhead.  

 Staying overnight in Danville, Virginia

 I always take photos of Coca Cola signs for my sister, Lanora

May 30 - Going to Appomattox

 In the town of Appomattox - not Appomattox Court House which is a few miles away

where Lee surrendered to Grant marking the beginning of the  end of the Civil War

Drivng to Appomattox  Court House

Tomorrow - Appomattox Court House National Park