One year ago today: November 30, 2021, now they prefet welfare.
Five years ago today: November 30, 2017, today & tomorrow.
Nine years ago today: November 30, 2013, I sort of watched TV.
Random years ago today: November 30, 2011, custom sidecars.
That rainstorm had me pull into Dalton, which has produced a coincidence. I don’t know from Dalton except the large number of times that I’ve had to stop there for gas. Whether north or south bound, it has repeatedly been the spot where I noticed I had to “stop at the next station”, and it turned out to be Dalton. This time I got into town and decided to overnight. The GPS listed several spots for a beer, they were all out of business. So I stopped at an obvious sports bar, the only thing open in the old downtown except a late night coffee shop. Welcome to Jefferson’s. Yes, I noticed silver shot up a dollar an ounce in nine minutes. I also notice the Yeti is too weak to power an ordinary 12V tire pump. It won't even work with the Yeti plugged in. Did I just waste $550?
Jefferson's is actually a restaurant with a bar in the back. A bar full of boisterous noisy old men shouting something at the TV screens. With my superb ability to tune such people out, I took some notes. The beer was only $1 but I had just the one. I needed to shop but that rainstorm would not let up. I found a camping spot and gave the Reb an update – during which I casually mentioned Dalton. Ha, she knows the town well and it is where one of the cats (Chloe) is from. Now folks, I do not believe in coincidences.
Taking the side roads north from Dalton, I drove through a place called Cleveland and took several opportunities to swear at the morons who work for Garwin. There is no way to get that GPS to act like it says in the instructions. None of the commands that say to tap the screen work like the examples given. So, I was back to using road maps. This took me through Georgetown and north to Ten Mile. This involved driving uphill some 1200 feet and watching your gas needle drop. But what the heck, in Georgia, gas is $2.95 a gallon. I could also tell it was going to be tricky finding a cup of coffee.
Basically I took two mountain passes to get toward Crossville. I stopped once at a TVA dam that had a roadside display. The low 40°F temp meant a short stay. I’d wanted to get some footage as a coal fired and nuclear plant are pretty much side by side. Around noon, I drove an hour with the window down. Try that in November anywhere out west.
Road in Africa.
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Calling ahead, I decided to stop for lunch in Crossville, which turned out to be a town right out of the 1960s. There’s a shop selling French boots and shoes. But first, I had to backtrack from Ten Mile (there is no town on the road, the map is misleading), and over a rise in the road, the car ahead of me plowed into a tree that had fallen across the road. The rain stopped overnight, but the wind was still howling through the mountain passes. I got out and he was okay but the tree was a real danger. I started dragging the large pieces off the road as most other motorists drove over the pieces, making matters worse. Can you see the stick wedged into my axle in this photo?
Finally into Crossville, there was that noise. I pulled over and looked under the van. Sure enough, one of the tree limbs had wedged under there. It only made noise when I slowed down. It was fun yanking it out so I decided to stop for coffee, since there was nothing on the mountain roads. Except a bar called “Time Zone” that opened at 4:00PM, but did not say in which zone. Anyway, I saw a coffee shop in downtown Crossfield, I was going to take a stroll on Main Street. But at 1860 feet altitude and late fall, it was just too arctic. So I walked into the coffee shop noticing a sign saying the noon special was a chicken salad sandwich. These millennial joints don’t like to list prices, as if it is something kewl dudes don’t get concerned with.
I got skinned $22 for the sandwich and a coffee. I’d bought a newspaper in Dalton and wanted to work the puzzle so I asked at the counter for a refill. The staff kind of looked at each other like I was trying to steal something. They hawed a bit and then kind of grudgingly said well, okay, I guess it would be okay this one time. I know one place not to stop. Oddly, I took a chair at a corner table away from the traffic pattern, but four or five women managed to bump the other chair in the half-hour I was there. I looked up and yuck. I must have hit the New Age hang-out. Funny thing, none of these women looked like they had enough money to buy $18 sandwiches and $4 coffees. Naturally, I glanced around and damn, I was the best looking person in the place, no matter how binary things are classified.
Around 1:00PM local time, I got into town and immediately took the doggies for a ten minute walk. It was great, I had zonked out in the van for 8-1/2 hours in great comfort. I’m going to make a couple small modifications to make life even easier. Remind me to pick up something to use as curtains, since when I parked last evening, in the middle of an empty row, the next two cars that came in parked way too close. I think they were employees but I never did like cars that pull up beside me and leave the motor running for ten minutes.
ADDENDUM
The goal is to become familiar with on-line investing via crowdfunding, not to become an overnight zillionaire. I’ve chosen sites that don’t have massive ($5,000+) minimums and one that is getting my attention is Hooker Airlines. This is the nickname I have for the HondaJet ads that keep recurring on social media. Methinks I may throw in $350, since it is the amount I did not invest in Google back in the 90s. The site is StartEngine. It would certainly not disappoint me if one of these outfits made me some money. I call them Hooker Airlines because the models shown on the airplanes spell that kind of hired help. I watched HondaJet a while when they first advertised but there is no real money to be made investing in Honda directly—unless you are prepared to wait forever.
