On Friday morning, while heading south on I 65 toward Montgomery, I drove through a stargate. It was some combination of clear, blue sky crispness, sleep deprivation, back on the road familiarity, and Leo Kottke and Mike Gordon filling my cab, that sent me down the worm hole. When I came out the other side it was Monday morning.

So, shall we review and catch up?

I left St. Paul at about 5:30 on Thursday morning. It snowed most of the hours across Wisconsin, sometimes hard enough to impair visibility, but it didn’t stick. Down in Illinois and south it was dry and easy going. I didn’t stop until just north of Birmingham at close to midnight. I slept in the truck at a roadside rest from about 2:30  ‘til almost 6. (see sleep deprivation above)

My first thought waking up was, shoot, I’m too late to get through Birmingham before rush hour. Sure enough, at 6:45 I was at a dead stop on the interstate. After creeping through town I stopped again. It was after this stop, with a fresh coffee, clean socks, and a freshly flossed and hosed down mouth, while thinking Neil Young wasn’t completely right about Alabama, that I slipped unexpectedly through the aforementioned stargate.

So what the hell have you been doing all this time one might ask.

I’m starting to wonder if I should be sleeping on an air mattress every night. My first night here I slept from about 8 PM ‘til 6 in the morning. I know I can attribute that to more than just the air mattress, but still. So here’s the list of the time bandits over the weekend. Setting up camp, cleaning, shopping, bike riding, napping, camper repairs, looking for the stuff I needed to do the camper repairs, going to church, did I mention napping?, reading, sitting in the sun, smoking cigars, bike riding, yep, got that. Oh, I think I drank a beer somewhere in there too. I think you get it. I fell right back into road life.

I am well and hope you all are too. 🙂

My dining room is my staging area.  Last year about this time it looked the same way, except there’s no Tooney (the cat) sitting on the table checking out my stuff.

About four or five days before departure, as I use things, they all get the question, “going or staying?”  If the answer is going then it goes into the dining room until departure.  If I use it again, I get it out of the dining room, use it, and back it goes into the dining room.  It all ends up in various containers and the next time they move is into the truck or camper.  It seems to work well and keeps me relaxed pre-flight. 🙂

I’m so relaxed and ready that I’m sitting at Stogie’s having a cigar and catching up on net time.  Tomorrow morning I’m out.