March 2015

March 23, 2015

A Football Upset

Road Warriorette Shari and I rolled into Cape early Sunday evening. The 1,311-mile ride was pretty unexceptional most of the way: weather was good except for some heavy rain Saturday evening and light rain for a couple of hours Sunday morning. We DID see three unusual things Sunday afternoon.

Just south of Nashville, I saw a vehicle pulling a travel trailer slowing to a stop, so I passed him with plenty of room. Just as I got even with him, I saw flames shooting out of the left rear trailer wheel. It took 100 yards or so for me to stop and back down the shoulder to see if he was going to need an extra fire extinguisher. It turned out that he had a wheel bearing lock up, causing the grease to catch fire. Luckily, he noticed it before the tire started burning. The fire went out without us having to do anything; he called for roadside assistance, and I went on my way.

Brake lights and smoke

Near Paducah, I saw brake lights come on, a cloud of smoke and cars swerving. A minivan had blown a driver’s side tire. He, too, made it to the shoulder safely.

Not 30 minutes later, I was passing an 18-wheeler and saw sparks and smoke coming from under the trailer. I slowed in front of the driver, turned on my four-way flashers and motioned for him to pull over. It turned out that his spare tire had come loose and was dragging the ground. The rim bouncing up and down was causing the sparks, and the friction was causing the tire to smoke.

What does this have to do with football?

Actually, not a thing. I scanned this photo just before leaving West Palm Beach so I’d have something to post if I got in tired and late. I’m both.

This shows how the same photo can look entirely different depending on if you run it pretty much full frame, like at the top, or cropped in tight. The picture won prizes in Missouri and Ohio press association contests, but I don’t remember anything about what was happening here. You can click on the photos to make them larger.

March 22, 2015March 22, 2015

Helpful Hotel Haley

Cullman, Alabama, is a good first night or last night stop for me when I’m heading to or from Cape or Florida.

I also like it because it has a couple of motels that have treated me right.

Where’s Crazy Carol?

Road Warriorette Shari and I had a busy day with several highs and lows which will be recounted later. She said she’d be willing to pay more than $35.97 for a room since it was our last night. We pulled into the Comfort Suites where I have had good service in the past, but I really didn’t want to fork over $107 plus tax when there was the Sleep Inn down the hill where we had stayed on our last trip for a lot less.

We picked it the last time because Shari needed a smoking room (she’s since stopped). When we stepped into the lobby, we asked the night clerk, “Where’s Crazy Carol?”

OMG

“OMG,” the young woman said. “Carol and I were just talking about this couple who came in here and named her that. She said you were a real hoot.”

“That would probably be us,” I confessed. Then Shari and I went into our normal night clerk banter that had her in stitches. I’m not going to give away any of our lines because we may want to use them someplace else in the future.

Haley, that was her name, said, “I’m going to have to call Carol. We were just chatting when you walked up. She’s not going to believe you guys are here.”

Ice bucket condoms

After we checked in, I needed to get some kind of information from her, and I took along my ice bucket. “Would you demonstrate for me the proper way to apply the ice bucket condom? I’ve stayed in scores of lodgings, and after looking inside some of the ice buckets, I can appreciate why you would WANT that plastic liner, but I’ve never figured out how to unfold the darned thing, and when you DO get it in the bucket, as soon as the ice hits it, it collapses.”

With another customer watching intently, Haley gave her best Vana White ice bucket condom presentation. She got it unfolded, but it still pulled out when the ice flumpped in.

She’s not quite Crazy Carol, but she’s a close runnerup. If Crazy Carol isn’t there the next time we stop, we’ll ask for Helpful Hotel Haley. She was a nice end to a long day of driving.

March 21, 2015March 21, 2015

Citrus Inn Restaurant

When Road Warriorettes Anne and Jessica journeyed to Florida last May, we left Athens, Ohio, passed through places like Albany, Georgia, and Athens, Georgia until we got to the Sunshine state.

It was getting late, and my passengers had, in addition to the Ohio and Georgia towns, gone through Whiny, Grumpy, Cross City and were approaching Armed Insurrection before we got something to eat and stayed overnight in Chiefland. They were in a better mood the next morning when we checked out the Levy County Quilt Museum.

Talked it up to Warriorette Shari

When it came time to haul Warriorette Shari back to Missouri, I talked up this great old restaurant in Chiefland that had the quilt museum and some inexpensive lodging nearby.

By the time we got to the general area of those cool places, it was dark. Even though we were northbound, we were beginning to get close to Whiny and Grumpy. Cranky and Hungry were far behind us. When the lights of Chiefland came and went with no restaurant, my passenger started to get concerned. “‘When you said you were a cereal killer, you WERE talking about Cheerios, right?”

Just about the time I was beginning to doubt myself, the Citrus Inn Restaurant appeared out of the darkness. I was right about stopping in Chiefland for the night on our last trip, but we had EATEN at Cross City.

We pulled into the lot afraid that it would be closed, but an EMT opened the door for us, and we saw two guys sitting together, some folks paying their bill, and another fellow sitting at a table near where we were going to wind up.

Huge oysters in the stew

I ordered the oyster stew (with two spoons, because I’m a nice guy), and a shrimp and oyster combo. Shari had a seafood combo with scallops and something else. It was a good thing I had asked for two spoons. The stew came in a bowl the size of a small bathtub, and half a cow of butter was floating on top of it. There were at least eight or 10 HUGE oysters hiding under the butter. These weren’t oyster chunks, they were slurping-size bivalve molluscs to be proud of.

Unlike Road Warriorette Jan, who is a foodie by trade, my first instinct is to chow down, not to take pictures of my food. That’s why there are pieces missing from our plates.

“I’m going to hurt myself”

When I got to the “if I eat one more bite, I’m going to hurt myself” stage, the guy who had been sitting across from us got up to leave. Catching his eye, I said, “We’ve got way more shrimp, scallops and oysters than we can finish, and we’re on the road, so we can’t take them with us. Would you like some of them?”

The guy patted his stomach, then said, “Thanks, but I’m almost in the same shape. I don’t think I could eat another bite. ” Then, before he could take another two steps, he turned around and said, “I’ve changed my mind. I’ve never tried the oysters. I’ll take a couple.”

We made the same offer to the two other customers. They considered it, but ended up passing.

The Citrus Inn Restaurant, established in 1928 (I think), is the kind of place where you could have those kinds of conversations with perfect strangers and not feel at all uncomfortable. I ate there in the middle 70s while covering a Suwanee River flood. It’s going to be one of my regular stops when I’m taking Hwy 19 through the middle of the state.

March 20, 2015

English Prof Gerald Mills

I probably shot English Prof Gerald Mills for The Sagamore. I’m pretty sure he was married to Linda Mills, who worked in the newsroom at The Missourian.

If I’m remembering that correctly, one night they invited me over to meet one of their friends who was a professional magazine freelancer. He wasn’t a big name, but he had some nice photos in his portfolio and was very patient when I kept pulling mediocre photo after mediocre photo from a stack of paper boxes I had brought along.

Difference between a good and bad photographer

Mostly silent through the cascade of crappy images, when he saw the last print come out of the last box, he sighed, looked me in the eye and said, kindly, “The difference between a good photographer and bad photographer is that a good photographer never shows his bad pictures.”

Point made.

I can’t think of his name now, but we stayed in touch for a number of years. He was good about sending me lists of publications looking for stock freelance photos. I don’t think I ever sold anything, but it was good experience to pitch my work.