Semi-Déjà vu

I’m on my annual drive south to Tennessee to play landlord for the week.  The past chores have included power washing the building, painting the front porch railing, cleaning gutters, sweeping out the basement, chopping down trees, cleaning empty apartments. This year’s project is to repair the shower tile that is leaking, although I have hired help. Since the apartment is occupied I can’t afford my steep decision curve while I assess the next step or figure out how to resolve an unexpected situation – which is always likely to occur.

I’ve pressed hard since returning from Hawaii. Before leaving the Big Island I mapped out a schedule from the first of June to the third week of July when the track starts. Sure one week includes a day trip to New York City to see a friend from Germany, and there is time in New Hampshire where my sister and I expect to bag the summit of Mount Washington one fine day during the Fourth of July week. But the schedule also included Belmont and a paint project for a neighbor. Now this week. Time to truck to Knoxville, purchase tile, demolish a couple bathroom walls and reinstall new backer board then re-tile, grout...all without traumatizing the tenant’s 20 year old cat that I believe died three years ago. The cat never moves!

I started out this morning shortly after dawn. It’s 850 miles and in my 1989 Jeep, 70 mph feels like the wheels are about to take off without the chassis. I tool down the Interstate without any cruise control. I own the driving lane. Everyone else has the passing lane. 

I envisioned Winchester, Virginia as tonight’s destination but pushed on to Walnut Hill, near Staunton and called it quits when I saw a sign for a KOA Kampground. What the hell. I’m going to save forty bucks on a motel room, but I’ll miss out on ordering pizza and pigging out on the whole damn thing. Oh, yes, I’ve done this a few times.  I could chill in front of the TV, watch some two thumbs down HBO movie, propped up on four thick foam pillows, listening to the annoying rattle-hum of a dorm-size refrigerator and wondering what is under the bed.

Instead, I traded the motel for a campsite, a grease stained picnic table, and a flock of noisy mallards. My site is next to a tiny stream. Water/electric hook up.  I’ve pitched my tent six years away from a site where Diablo, Phoenix and I camped in my Dad’s RV.  It was mid-fall then and I had wrapped up my book tour. The day had been traumatic. A disintegrated tire in Wytheville, Virginia left us on the side of I-81 precariously close to the traffic where the vehicular wind whipped the tiny RV back and forth as we waited for a tow.  See November 10, 2006 blog.

Tonight, I’m snuggling down in my LL Bean sleeping bag before the mosquitoes descend on my carcass. I’m not roughing it too much. I got Wi-Fi, but nothing to eat or drink so I’ll venture out to find some snacks.

Wait just a minute. I saw an advertisement for Domino’s Pizza in the Kampground brochure. They deliver!