Seems I can't go anywhere anymore without a case of "traveler's complaint." Was awakened early with a rotten occurence and couldn't get back to sleep, so just continued reading On Her Majesty's Frightfully Secret Service as I hung out in the bathroom. So I spent most of the day in a sleep-deprived haze on top of a late night and it being the final day of Atomicon. Luckily I'd started corralling items last night, so I did manage to be dressed before I woke James up and we had pretty much everything together by the time we left for breakfast. Unlike the first two nights we were here when the morning temps were in the 30s, this morning it was in the high forties, presaging the summery weather later on.

The conference room was quite alive when we arrived, although people were in various states of wakefulness. Some folks had gone to Hofer's Bakery for breakfast; the rest of us dug into the hotel buffet with gusto. I just had cereal, oatmeal, and toast with a glass of milk; even if I liked eggs and sausage it was beyond my digestion at that point. Then people began to trickle away home: Alice and Ken, Debbie Medina and her best friend Debbie, Juanita and David, Jerry. We did a slow Southern goodbye that turned unintentionally hilarious when I was trying to wheel out both suitcases at a time and one kept tipping over, and then I nearly tipped over a chair myself. At that point Terry, Aubrey, Kristine, and Damian helped us out with the stuff, with James trailing behind in his power chair. They were sweet and helped us load the back of the pickup, and then went off to Wendell's restaurant in search of lunch.

We took some more time getting everything settled, James used the bathroom one last time, and finally we loaded the power chair, then, due to a big truck attempting to turn into the driveway of the hotel, had to turn right instead of left and went around the back instead of via the main street. As we approached Wendell's, I suggested we stop and join them for lunch and then go on. So we did, only to find the place packed. This is a very popular local place and it looked like everyone was already lined up outside the door. We went inside and could not see them, so I walked up and down the strip shopping center and found Shannon extracting some items from her trunk. She said the wait was very long, so she was getting some games to hold them over. I found everyone in the back room and apparently they'd already been waiting 45 minutes and someone at the table next to them had been waiting an hour! So we just went on, enjoying the blossoming trees and the farms—one place had two tiny brown ponies!—and the antique stores, until we were finally out of the country and back on the highway

When we reached Dawsonville, we stopped at the North Georgia Premium Outlets. I simply had to have new underwear and socks. We were supposed to stop last year, but were too exhausted after the dialysis excursion and the emergency room visit, and then we were supposed to stop when we went up the August before that for the eclipse. James was already tired, and I was still hurting and didn't really want to stop, plus the temps were now up into the 70s and I was really, really regretting not bringing my broad-brimmed hat, so I just trudged to the Hanes place and bought three 6-packs of underwear and of socks, and two pairs of lounging pants for James. Then we went on.

Waze gave us what was supposed to be a shorter route to the vet's office. Not sure if it was shorter, but it was different than the ravening hordes of GA400 racing southward at breakneck speeds. We stopped at a Bojangles to get James a sandwich, but I just had a doughnut next door from Dunkin; tummy was still too upset. We discovered downtown Cumming (which looks a lot like downtown Roswell), and also went through Johns Creek, which appears to be one big shopping center! Eventually, we ended up driving past Jones Bridge Park, where PGO used to have our work picnics before they decided to change them to (ugh!) May and a different place.

Tucker was brought out first, all freshly bathed with nicely trimmed claws, and jumped on me, then tried to make for the doors. I'd asked Snowy be brought out in his carry box, and when he emerged I saw with some bemusement that his tail was gone. Looked like he gave the vet or the tech the slip and they tried to catch him, only to pull off his tail feathers. I did that once with Bandit.

So we arrived home sometime after four, only to discover a big box on the front porch. Damn. Wonder how long that sat there. It was from Vine (it's a new chair; hope it works!) and was sent FedEx instead of through the mail, which I stopped until tomorrow. James scraped up some chili and I had the rest of the rice in some soup, and we spent most of the night drowsily staring at the idiot box. Found two episodes of M*A*S*H I hadn't seen in ages ("The Price of Tomato Juice" and "Dear Ma"), and, of course these days, Perry Mason. We are back to the 50's ones again and much different from the later ones. Lots of smoking and much antagonism between Lieutenant Tragg and Mason.

And so endeth another Atomicon. 

Labels: birds, clothes, dogs, food, friends, pets, television, travel

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:54:00 PM

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