Well, we're in for the night, and pretty much mostly unpacked. Pidge has been running up and down his cage roof tossing bird toys off the floor (he did it at Grandma's, but not to this extent; he found it much more fun to jump on Mom's head and get her attention) and Willow is lying on her dog bed, blissful on the fleece (she already had her recliner fix when James sat down earlier). Not quite sure what to do with everything (it's remarkable what we packed in the car). And we're actually cold for the first time in two weeks. (We also had a decent night's sleep for the first time in ten days; Mom's mattresses are both over 30 years old. She said wistfully late Friday night that she should have had us go with her to buy a new one. Arrrgh! We could have gone on Wednesday, after it stopped raining.)

We went from one extreme (below freezing) this morning; by the time we got to North Carolina we had to peel off our jackets because it was in the sixties. It was another clear blue-and-white day for most of the ride (we should have known it was going to be nice, as we had seen a magnificent scarlet and orange sunset last night), and we got to see all the beautiful country we missed on November 20 because of the fog and then darkness: lovely farms--lots and lots of cows, both dairy and feeder steers--and rural landscapes against the line of the Blue Ridge. The steep roads that had led up in the clouds on that Saturday were clear and we saw an outspread valley to the East; it was still a bit hazy and you could still see for miles.

Pidge got his first turndown today--after we'd brought him into a Wendy's and also the Russell Stover outlet store in North Carolina (where I-77 and I-40 meet) and the South Carolina Welcome Center (they were serving wassail and apple doughnuts--yum!). The clerks at the Russell Stover store actually made a fuss over him. They didn't have any of the boxed sugarless dark chocolate, so we stopped at the larger store in Anderson, SC, and they wouldn't let me bring the carry box in. The manager was apologetic; it was because they served ice cream. Actually, the fact that we didn't get directed out of the other places was the big surprise; we just waited outside while James shopped and Pidge was cooed over by a half-dozen elderly ladies who came in as part of a bus tour.

Willow scarfed down a plain junior Wendyburger with relish and actually challenged a bigger dog at a rest area. Wow.

BTW, many thanks again to Charles Rutledge who suggested using Route 321 instead of taking I-85 into Charlotte. Apparently construction has made the interchanges a mess there. 321 was a great road and we even found Public Radio's delightful current events' quiz show, Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me playing both times we were on it. Mostly we just listened to Christmas music until even I was sick of it. Oddly, we noticed most of the "Lite" all-Christmas music stations are 102Mhz, 103MHz, 104MHz, or 105MHz.

Unfortunately the moment we got north of Atlanta, it started to rain, so we had to schlep all our things into the house while getting wet. We're good at it, though, and didn't get too damp. (That was left for the run to the grocery store for the necessities of life: milk and a Sunday paper.) The only bobble we had was the DSL modem not working. I guess if you don't use them for a while they shut themselves off. James rebooted both the router and the modem and everything is now fine.

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:40:00 PM

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