The drive to Dahlonega, GA that normally takes 3 hours took us 5 this afternoon. To be fair this is the first time we have made the trip in the afternoon. The other half dozen times it has been an early morning drive, which is what it will be from now on, trust me.
First came the 15 minute delay while we waited on a sporadic line of school buses leaving from the Lula school complex. There were 13 buses total in various states of fullness. They had a State Trooper stopping crossing traffic at a tee intersection. A good thing probably, as that was quite a line of busses that would have had to come to a stop and wait for traffic to clear on semi-busy GA52 before making their rights or lefts.
Next happened only about 5 miles down the road when we came up to a just closing railroad crossing. We sat for about 5 minutes watching train cars full of wood chips move by. With no end in sight, the train much to our chagrin, started to slow and eventually stop. At this point all the other cars and trucks in line with us started to make u-turns. After waiting a few more minutes with no sign of movement we figured these were probably locals and they knew better, so we too did a u-turn and headed back to the last intersection. We pulled out a map and headed in a likely direction. As it turned out we ended up going south about 7-8 miles and then prompting headed back north to come out about 3 miles further down the road we were on. Moving was better than sitting.
After we checked in to our room in the Holiday Inn Express it was off for pizza at our favorite little Italian place on the square, Caruso’s.
When we finished dinner it was time for a little shopping as we needed toothpaste and I wanted a paperback crime fiction book to occupy the time normally spent doing this. We went to the Wal-mart on the edge of town and parked nearly as far out in the parking lot as we could, to get in a walk and avoid door dings. I found a book, we snagged the toothpaste and headed for the checkout. We ended up just placing our items down on the nearest flat spot and walking out though, as there were 4 or 5 cashiers with at least 10 people in each line.
Unbelievably there were 2 cars, 1 in front and 1 next to, parked near us when we got back out to the north forty. WTF? No door dings though.
There was a chain drug store right across the street that had everything Wal-Mart had except the long lines, where we found a book and the toothpaste no problem.
Purchased Today: $16.50 in gas
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1099.41
Started down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 200