Back home in Alabama

Today was my first day of not staying in a hotel or Hostel since I left home over 3 weeks ago and I have to say it was pretty nice. I didn't feel compelled to be out sight seeing or in any sort of hurry. In a word, it was nice.

I also was able to get my butt back on the road for some running. My running pace down out of the mountains is a lot faster but I think my energy levels are still a bit low and that my lungs are still feeling the effects of me being sick. I got in 2 miles at an 8:06 per mile pace so I was pretty happy with that and also quit sticky with sweat. Got to love the humidity!

The morning time was taken up by the run and some e-mail catch up. I get these really long emails full of cartoons and it has taken me until today to catch up. Christopher was playing Zelda on the Wii so I was switching off between watching him and surf/chatting. Danny and Sarah had gone off to a physical therapy appointment because during her stint in the hospital for diabetes she had a blood clot in her right leg which has weakened it so she was walking a little funny. Christopher and I were supposed to setup the tent we had used in the Smokey Mtns because it had gotten soaked and needed to dry out but by the time we got around to that Danny came home so we got into a little bit of trouble but we got the tents washed off and put out to dry. What a mess...I'm glad we didn't have to try and set that thing up somewhere else. Camping in the rain is the pits if you're in a tent.

Danny and I went off to Lowes to buy some lumber for shelves he's putting into Sarah's room. She has too much stuff so they are really doing up her room with shelving, cabinets, and a new bed with drawers in it. How can someone so young have so many things? The lumber we were getting was 10 and 12 foot long by 8 inches wide so I grabbed a nearby lumber cart to put it in. When I started pushing it I had apparantly found the noisiest cart ever. It wasn't really consistent but maybe every 3rd revolution the wheels would make the worst screeching sound...like an old door with rusty hinges would. It was very conspicuous and everyone would look at us as we were walking up to the registers. Danny had forgotten his coupon and I told him I could stay there and wheel the cart around the store annoying everyone. He took that idea one step further and said I could just sit there wheeling it back and forth at one spot smoking a cigarette and saying 'This is America...' like the lady at the restaurant in Townshend. Awesome.

After getting the lumber back we took it out and hung out in the shop for a bit and then got our swimming suits on to go swimming. Sarah had gone out with her friend Anna (sp?) and they came back around the same time we were getting in so they joined us. Little kids love to be thrown around and are sort of demanding about it so I got a nice shoulder workout tossing them to and fro. Anna is tiny so I had to be careful not to throw her out of the pool. Sarah is at least one growth spurt ahead of her so it wasn't as much of a problem. Both of them were having troubles keeping their suits on tho. I guess they don't know how to buy clothes that fit them :)

After that it was back to vegging mode as Donna got home and we all kind of did our own thing. I got started in on the latest National Geographic I have which has a nice series of articles about China. Later on in the afternoon we all went outside and tossed around the football which is one of life's little pleasures for someone like me. I really wish I had more people to toss around a football or baseball with.

Dinner was a home made chicken pot pie which Danny had made up. It's not like the pot pies I had as a kid in that it came in a 13 x 9 pan instead of those little pie tins. I remember really liking those ones you got out of the freezer as a kid but I wonder if it would be at all the same having one today. The only problem with the pie was that it was hotter than hell and for some reason didn't want to cool down so we all sat there for a bit just talking and blowing on it trying to get it to be cool enough to eat.

After dinner Sarah and I did the dishes and then we all sat down to play some phase 10. I got slapped a lot for skipping people and I have to say it sort of ticked me off. It's a game people! Nice lesson about using violence to solve problems. Why is it that girls think it's totally cool to hit guys when they are upset with you some how? What a load of crap. After the kids went to bed the adults played a game of Sequence which I'm proud to say I won.

I got to bed pretty late because I got caught up in watching this show 'Bones'. I've never seen it before but it looks pretty interesting. In this episode they had managed to get into a really old bank vault from one of the first banks in Washington D.C. I missed parts of it because I was on the phone but they started talking about the illuminati so that was interesting.

No pictures from today, only memories :)

D