We left fairly early Monday morning and headed back to Valdosta. We did make a stop at the Jacksonville Trader Joes, because when you don't have a local Trader Joes, you have to make a haul when you find one, amiright? The cookie butter alone...oh my.
We made it back to Sara's house right as the solar eclipse was starting. If there was anything I regretted about this particular trip, it was that I was so far away from eclipse totality. Eh, it's ok. If I'm still alive in 7 years, hopefully I'll get to see it then. At any rate, we all got our stylish cardboard glasses and headed out to the backyard to watch the moon go by. It was still pretty cool, even at 94% totality! It got dimmer outside, and the temperature cooled off considerably, but it wasn't so drastic that it looked much different than just a cloudy day. Still...cool stuff!
Afterwards, Sara and I decided to end our vacation with a bang by getting a couple of Red Box DVDs, getting into our PJs at 4:30 in the afternoon (do NOT judge us), and watching two of the worst movies we've seen in years, "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword" (the dungeon octopus lady is worth checking out, heh) and "Snatched" with Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn...bless their hearts. Still, though, it was nice to hang out and relax.
There was one aspect of the day that wasn't so much fun. I haven't mentioned it before now, because it was very sad, but Sara's 13 year old Jack Russel terrier Scrappy had been very sick. The vet didn't know what was wrong with him, but he had stopped eating and drinking, and would pretty much just follow you around with big, puppy dog eyes, albeit with occasional bursts of barking, but mainly, he just wanted to be held. The vet didn't think he'd make it for very long, but he hung in there the whole time we were in Florida, and seemed to be about the same when we came back. I was glad to be able to see him again, because he was a very sweet dog. So during the movies, Scrappy and I cuddled on the couch, I petted him, and I told him what a good boy he was. I also explained that he didn't need to worry, because when he was ready to go, my own boys would be waiting to play with him when he got to the other side. Needless to say, Sara and I loved on and cried over that dog a lot that afternoon. (Kind of like I'm crying now thinking about it, damnit.) As it turned out, Scrappy hung in there for another few days before Sara finally had to make the call take him to the vet. That's never an easy decision, but it was the best one. He was a very good boy. :(
We basically just hung out, watched TV and talked until I had to go to bed. It was low key, but nice. It was a long drive back to Huntsville, so I was going to have to get up fairly early and gird my loins to drive with the semi-trucks. The next morning I got up, said my goodbyes, and headed home.
As luck would have it, when I was getting my GPS ready for the drive, it gave me a meandering, slightly longer, yet Atlanta-avoiding route home. It was only about 45 minutes longer and instead of driving up I-75, it sort of wobbled through west Georgia, back into east Alabama and headed north. I was fine with that, and as it turned out, it was a much more pleasant drive. Mostly it was rural highways, and some of the roads were so backwoods that it made where I grew up look positively metropolitan, but I managed to avoid the big groups of 18 wheelers and heavy traffic. If I have to complain about anything (and I'm beginning to think that I do, haha) it was that I had no idea where I was for most of the trip. I didn't even realize I'd made it back into Alabama until I passed a sign for Roanoke, Alabama, which I'd never heard of! I found out that I don't know about an awful lot of places in my home state, but I'll remedy that one of these days.
I made it home just after 2:00, and I was glad to see my house. After hauling my stuff in, I immediately took off my pants and fell asleep for about an hour! I love Sara, and her family is awesome, but they haven't reached Kelly Doesn't Wear Pants Around Them status (a high honor, of course, ha!) as of yet, so it had been a long week!
It was a really wonderful trip and I am so glad Sara and I got a chance to get together and act silly for a few days. It's hard when you live so far away from your best friends. Sometimes you don't realize how much you miss them until you get to see them, which makes spending time with them all the better, but the leaving part sucks. It's still worth it, though. :)
So there you have it, folks, a tale for the ages! It had it all: danger, intrigue, exotic locations and lots and lots of food! Hopefully time and circumstance will allow me to visit her, and my other far away friends, so that I can have more adventures to tell you about! Thanks for reliving it with me!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment