So, where was I when I was side-tracked by the Clown Conundrum?
I really shouldn't wait so long to put out a new post. My mind is all over the place. I have several stories I want to get out, but I don't want to jump ahead.
Have you ever trick-fucked a cookie box? No? I'm jumping ahead. We'll come back to this.
Last we spoke, a small tornado had just churned up the campground where I was staying in eastern Mississippi (see Timberrrr!), and I was fleeing from real-life southern rednecks (see Guess What State!). I'm kinda glad that Mother Nature kicked us out, because just in the 5 minutes between the moment I arrived at the campground to the moment the storm blew in, I observed all sorts of "white-bread" behavior going on that probably wasn't going to make for what I would consider a pleasant camping experience. Henry and I ended up spending the night at a hotel in Meridian, MS, since we had nowhere else to go that dark and stormy night. It was nice to be able move around in an indoor space that is larger than 150 square feet and to shower in such a way that I could freely lift my arms up to allow my hands to shampoo my hair, as opposed to maneuvering my head down to my hands with my arms tucked in tight against my body, like I do in Stevie's shower.
We also enjoyed the big hotel bed, a bed that wasn't piled with 20 bottles of wine, 3 cases of beer, and 30 t-shirts, pirate rings, and other ridiculousness I've picked up for my friends along my travels. (The fridge magnet that is a beignet dressed up for Mardi Gras is so ridiculous. It's one of my favorite trailer bedmates at the moment. I love it so much, but it's for Vanessa. Pouty face.) I'm a traveling Hoarders episode. But, I really love living in Stevie, even with all her quaint areas and lack of storage space for all my crap (soon to be my friends' crap). I was super glad to reunite with Stevie the next morning and to hit the road Jack. Off to Alabama. (I just re-read this last part. I totally didn't mean for it to come out that way. But, I'm not changing it. It's too ridiculous.)
Our next stop was Demopolis, AL. I'm not sure if y'all are familiar with the campgrounds built and maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers in the South, but these campgrounds are SPECTACULAR!!! Clean, spacious, water/electricity, dump station, inexpensive, gator'ed. Up to this point on the adventure, this spot in Demopolis was my favorite campsite.
I don't really have anything too exciting to share with you about this segment of the adventure. Much of my traveling is willy nilly. It's purpose is to allow me to get the sense of a place, to see what I can see, especially stuff I've never seen before. I'm particularly interested in anything I've never even heard of, and never-even-heard-of doesn't have GPS coordinates, and sometimes nothing at all exciting happens on the way to never-even-heard-of.
Oh wait! I kinda do have something interesting to report. Two things. 1. Alabama is surprisingly absolutely beautiful. Ocean and beaches fringing the bottom. Rolling hills, rivers, lakes, and forests on top. 2. The camp host at the Foscue Creek Campground in Demopolis
is a retired NFL player (Lawrence Pillers) with two Super Bowl rings.
Make me an angel that flies from Montgomery.
Make me a poster of an old rodeo.
Just give me one thing that I can hold on to.
To believe in this livin' is just a hard way to go.
-John Prine
For a second time on my adventure, I picked a destination based on a song. We next stayed at another ACOE campground just outside of Montgomery, AL. This one had a laundry facility. I hadn't done laundry since I was at Jimmy's in Metairie, LA, and I was low on clean skivvies. Perfect timing.
Now (since I've started the sentence with the word "now," you know some shit's about to happen)... now, I could have used the dryer in the facility to dry my clothes but no, no. I decided not to. I decided instead to bust out my camping clothesline, because I'm camping, FSS, and I had dragged this clothesline all the way from Idaho. It was taking up precious space, and it was time for it to earn its keep. I swiped away at the rising humidity in the air. Pish Posh! I was going to rely on the increasing winds to dry ALL my clothes and towels and bedding and rugs and dishrags and Henry's blankies.
Gawd it was so f*cking hot.
I took half a day off from work, left my textiles dangling, and drove into Montgomery.
Our first stop was an enormous, 2-story "antique" store. From head to toe, this place was stuffed with of all sorts of misfit chotchkies and lonely trinkets. Looking at all this stuff was like looking through binoculars. A slight refocusing of the lense and a whole new dimension of junk would come into view. It smelled of days of yore, of asbestos tiles, of shedded skin cells, of must, of old books and dolls. It was a carnival of thrills, a Cherry Festival, if you will. (Wink.)
It was Eden.
Henry was in his stroller, and I strolled with him through the store, carefully checking for a soulful connection to any of that crap. I was dying to find something I just couldn't live without. I imagined I would display it in my home and refer to it lovingly when visitors (Paula) would ask about it. "Oh that? Yeah. I know it looks a little rough and it smells like gin and cigarette smoke, but I discovered it on my adventure when I was in Montgomery, AL, and it reminded me so much of this time when I was a kid during the winter in Cascade, ID, when I put a dime into a gumball-toy vending machine, cranked the dial, and out popped a teeny tiny cigarette lighter, and it was so small that I could hide it in my belly button, and dad let me have a sip of his beer, and we went sledding. It's such a good memory. Such a great find."
Sadly, no real connections were made. I did feel a slight tremor when I touched a glass butter dish that had the Last Supper etched on the bottom (hilarious), but I couldn't imagine referring to it lovingly. So, I left it on the display table next to the elevator.
We left and went and visited the site where Rosa Parks was arrested for sitting in a seat on a bus while not being white at the same time. Do you know how tiny Rosa Parks was? I stood next to a statue of her, and she came up to my shoulder (I'm 5'3.75"). So, this little tiny speck of a woman sat in a seat on a bus, not saying a peep, and this act was so atrocious to white people that she had to be arrested and taken to jail? I wonder what would have happened to her if she'd been bigger than a speck.
It started to rain.
That Last Supper butter dish will be featured on Antiques Road Show on day and it will be worth $$$$$$. It will be discovered that it is a Tiffany piece and the owner will say oh that’s nice FFS! 😂😂😂😂
You are the first person I know to visit the Rosa Parks site. Thank you for honoring her💪🏽💪🏽💪🏽💪🏽💪🏽💪🏽