As today dawned, the sun kissed the portals of the Walmart store where we had stayed overnight. Another
lovely sunny day had arrived. A little
fresher than most of the 63 days we have spent in USA so far. Maybe the arrival of Hurricane Matthew off
the coast of Florida had something to do with it. In any case, it was refreshing as we sat
eating breakfast with the door open and the fly screen across the open door.
The lorries that had parked near us last night had been
moved off by the little man with a big job in the little security car with
orange flashing lights, and we were the only vehicle left in the ocean of a car
park there by morning.
So it was a little strange when there was a gentle knock at
the door as Tim washed up! Ruth was already back to the bedroom section of Harvey, as she was still in her
nightie and dressing gown.
A rather odd looking, old woman stood there. She had trousers on, a little like Rupert
Bear trousers, and a camouflage vest type of singlet. She didn’t appear to have much else on,
either!!! The song, "swing low, sweet chariot" came to mind.
Tim cheerfully asked her mission and she sort of invited herself in.
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| Dee-anna? |
She said that she had noticed us there (observant of you,
old girl, as Harvey stuck out like a pimple on a nose, - in the vast car park) and, if we were interested, there was a free campground up the road,
about 26 miles away, at Warwick Dam. It
was run by the Dam people. (Presumably
she didn’t mean “the damn people”)!
And we could stay there for 14 days free of charge.
Tim feigned interest, as she took the trouble to point out
the exact location on the map with a shaky finger (bless her) that made it somewhat
difficult to spot the exact location.
It was kind of hard to say that we were not really
interested as we were heading the exact opposite way, - as she repeated her
kind offer of help, - manifold times over.
Ruth meanwhile was in the back of Harvey, struggling not to
cough, sneeze, or laugh out loud!
Tim thanked Deeana, - we think that was her name. Her diction was poor, and she spat a lot! And eventually she retreated out of the door
and across the car park towards Walmart.
We know not whence she came, but we made sure we saw where
she was going!
By the time Deeana (or was it Diana?) had gone it was getting late, and so we
pointed Harvey southwards, and drove.
Soon we came across McDonalds and swung Harvey in on the
handbrake, neatly doing a broadside parking stunt that Clarkson of Top Gear
would have been proud of.
A whole lot of emails were waiting, and other had to be
sent, so we used the time wisely to catch up.
Sitting across the way from us was a lady with the most
amazing hairdo ever. The picture will
give you the idea. If I say, “a
beehive”, will you understand? This was
the best beehive we’ve seen in years!
 |
| Beehive or what? |
We drove on through miles of lovely countryside, and
straight roads.
We had noticed recently some of the fields with low bushes
bearing what looked like white roses on them.
It looked like small, low, white rose bushes to our untrained and
uneducated townies eyes. Tim made a stab
at identifying the crop. He thought it
was cotton.
So he found a straight bit of road, and screeched Harvey up
to a handbrake halt, and jumped out to investigate. Ruth was not far behind him, and we both
checked out the crop.
 |
| Cotton |
True!
Tim was right, for the second time this Harveymoon. He was pleased to confirm, - the crop is
cotton. We were excited because we don’t
have this crop in UK, so it was a bit of a discovery. We understood how Sir Walter Raleigh must
have felt when discovering tobacco on his very own trip to USA!
Our destination today was Bainbridge, Georgia. We had thought we would use the RV campground
there. But once we were in the town, we
were passing a Walmart, and so pulled in to stay the night. After all, all we needed was some dinner, a
game of Rummikub (you should try it sometime, great game), and a sleep.
We don’t ask much in life, -
us travelers!
Simple pleasures are the best.
