the last month has been a bit of everything...

It's been a bit since I updated this thing...so I will attempt to play a minor-league game of catch up. The last month consisted of (in no particular order):

-kayaking through the Ocala National Forest with Richie and Amber (and I would again like to extend my deepest thanks to Richie for ramming me solidly into the underbrush several times and for laughing his fucking face off everytime I managed to turn myself around and paddle backwards a ways... seriously, so very inspiring)... oh and I would like to thank myself for not wetting my pants when we saw Mr Baby Alligator. Good job Sarah, you saved your shorts and the last threads of dignity you had left after getting the kayak stuck on that fucking log for 10 minutes.

-Going out on the boat with my dad, Maryann, Richie & Amber and managing to get fuckall sloshed by early afternoon...and then continuing on into the evening...

-Surprize birthday party for Jessica....and Richie and I jamming the pirate pinata so full of candy the poor tots took almost an HOUR to bash it apart. ("there's room in the head, keep stuffing it in!!")

-The gobs and gobs and gobs of Sam's Club Double Bubble chewed on the drive down.

-My VERY awesome and SUPREMELY talented friends Jeff and Richie helping me to ready the Blue Chariot VW for her journey north... They taught me to change: the fuse in my cigarette lighter (i.e. how to charge anything in the car), my taillight, my side mirror (hit twice, 2X!!! in Boston), my key (battery dead=stupid, lazy owner has to manually use key, come now...) and lest we forget....

-the Ill-Fated Great Upholstery Cleansing of 2007 whereupon John (well meaning) had me use this super-detergent-vac-thing on my seats, causing it to now look as though I emulated the astronaut and wee'd myself while driving but I, unlike her, did not use a diaper. My seats look like I peed on all of them.

A terrible miscalculation of the soap/water/scotch guard.

ah well.

Also there was: ripping waves on inner tubes of death with Richie, barhopping with Amber and Richie and the Great BatBoy sighting of 2007, riding on Camerons jeep in the backyard, pad-thai adventures. the AirShow, housesitting and horseshoe crab sightings while kayaking, palmetto bug smooshing, salt water belching and a lot of reading.

****************AMMENDUM*******************

Beers with Corey most assuredly were a highlight of the trip. That and playing "watch the splooshed bug slide up my rain-x slicked windshield" game. Always a treat.

Not to mention the kickass treasure hunt Richie devised for my drive up to Savannah...

Oh, and there was the barrage of treats I managed to consume while down there: Richies pasta, Ahi-Tuna, peel & eat shrimp, cheese and tomato sandwiches, the John's Create Your Own Nachos platters, my world famous pad-thai and lots of yummy El Toucan.

I drank, I talked, I sang, I annoyed...

The lady at the ABC who said that if I were to take away the "The" part of the line "Even Jesus hates the Yankees" sweatshirt I was wearing, then she would be happy. She hates 'em, those snowbirds.

I handed her my Yankee $20 and made my way out the door.

I nearly forgot to mention (in my post-Florida Oscar-esque speech): seeing Adam in Tampa (along with his 'hot skater friends', thanks Rebecca!), Amber breaking the pint glass, self-portrait/drunken tomfoolery with Jess, Marilyn and Amber etc. etc. I'm sure there will be more when my liver dries out and my brain cells rejeuvinate.

living out of my suitcase...
Current mood: thoughtful

...and missing my bed.

Things have been both whirlwind and placid.

Some fleeting mutterings of the past month of wanderings:

*The mornings alone with my mom, drinking coffee and watching TV. Glancing at her from the corner of my eye and feeling a stab of panic...

*The paper-thin feeling of my great-grandmothers hand as her watery eyes probed my face for a trace of recognition.

*Wanting to yell at the Amish boy riding his bicycle without a helmet, but knowing he's not allowed to wear it.

*Driving a double king cab Dodge Ram diesel pickup truck in the pouring rain along a mountainous road, all the while pounding on my left leg to keep it from wanting to step on the non-existent clutch in panic.

*The feeling of my moms shoulderblades as she hugged me goodbye at the airport.

*My mom and I crying with laughter as we watched Little House on the Prarie with the sound turned off and devised our own lines for the citizens of Walnut Grove.

*Pouring through her photo albums and trying to find someone I recognized in the pictures of myself as a small child.

*Utter sadness when I had to leave my great-grandmother at the hospital.

*Resigned horror when they made me check my bag for the flight to Florida.

*Watching the manatees in the river.

*Paddling out in the ocean kayak and coming nanoseconds from wetting myself when I saw a fin surface about 20 feet away... (dolphin, not shark for those who care)

*Walking through Dupont circle as streetlights illuminated piles of wet leaves

more along the way
Current mood: content
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8:14 am - onions, bikers and strippers...this is Georgia
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Dropped off the hikers a few days back. We ran into a thru-hiker at the Nantahala who was so insanely happy and excited that it made me long to hike the trail myself again. The was a major calamity when the park ranger at Amicicola Springs gave me some bad directions and we had to travel up a horrific service road to the top of Springer Mountain, one that was too narrow to actually turn the car around and caused me to hug one side of the gravel, potted road while willing myself not to look out the left window at the sheer drop-off. It took me about 3 days to unclench my hands from the steering wheel.

Made it to Florida after the ten hour haul of doom down through the state of Georgia, where people oscillated between going 85 mph to rubbernecking at the site of the bus-over-overpass area. South of Atlanta, the 123 miles to Valdosta stretched interminably dotted with signs for "We Bare ALL!!" to discount Disney tickets, a false sense of hope that Orlando was somehow near (filthy lies, since it was, in fact, at least 200 miles away).

Unfortunately there is this horrible thing they like to call "Bike Week" down here this time of year, one of those events that you forget about until it actually descends upon you in a haze of ear-shattering rumbles and flashes of large men lounging on even larger hogs, swerving in and out of traffic and NOT WEARING HELMETS...The Florida Turnpike (cutting across the state, over to Orlando) was where a)it started to pour that torrential rain that Florida has, when the heavens open up and dump down seemingly directly over just your car, when you can see clear sky directly in front of you and directly behind you and b) I found my first Dunkin Donuts since the Maryland area.

Finally pulled into Cocoa Beach at about 10:30 at night after being in the car since 9 that morning. My friends welcomed me with a well-deserved beer and some amazing weather...

from the journey down...
Current mood: crazy
Category: Travel and Places
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Things today that have freaked me out?
Well, the first thing may have been the car/back/window/decal/thing that was Calvin (ala Calvin & Hobbes fame) praying in front of a cross... in a whole play on the Calvin peeing /thing that was so tragically hip with the Ford/Chevy drivers of yesteryear...It was proudly displayed (on an Escalade mind you) along with a confederate flag. My mind simply reels with the duplicity of such automobile message offerings.

Another thing that freaked me out? The length of the state of Virginia and how many undulating hills of cows, civil war graveyards and abandoned mansions there are. I sincerely think that they exceed their limit of all these things. There really are only SO many photo opportunities I can take... Upon conversation, we were thinking that the state leaves the crumbling shell houses for future photo op's. We`actually saw one dilapidated house/shack/creepy-side-of-the-road-place-where-some-old-lady-collected-Kewpie-dolls-and-tourist-heads turned into an annual Halloween bonanza, complete with the banner proclaiming "HAUNTED HOLLOWS" in a ragtag large display of laziness. Those people that I shake my fist at, those who have yet to take down their weather beaten christmas decorations in MARCH... these hanuted mansion folk have 'em beat. They just never take the stuff at all, figuring the place was fucking creepy enough and there is no need to foster a false sense of security.

One more thing? Huddle House. Truly the poor man's Waffle House.

So, the journey south is going smoothly... Blue Lightning (my chariot/AKA Jetta Wagon) is performing smashingly and I managed to load some podcasts extraordinaire before I left. Driving through NYC was horrific of course... and I spent my fume filled haze of horror and fury marvelling at the fact that I allowed myself to follow the Mapquest directions to my mothers house in Maryland and allowed myself to take part in the nightmare that is the leadup to the GWB and the nightmarish wasteland that is the New Jersey Turnpike, land of $4.00 bottles of water and full service gas stations where we waited for literally 35 minutes to get gas while the attendant (whom I had been loudly berating as the slowest asinine lifeform on the planet yet turned out to be the nicest person ever) pumped the cheapest gas that I have seen in the 8 states I have already driven through. (I know, I know.. I have a lifetime of bad kharma)...
Now? In a hotel room in Abingdon, VA.. the Super 8. Allows dogs, has free wireless, a soda machine with Mr. Pibb and a Mr. Food next door that has a pretty damn extensive beer selection and a "create-your-own-6-pack" that we have filled (um 2 of) with Flying Dog, Red Hook, Spoetzl Hefeweizen and some local brews.
Tomorrow it's onwards to Georgia...