Alpharetta - Monday - Home (for real this time)

The repair shop called fairly early this morning and said that the problem with the Tahoe was, indeed, the fuel pump, and that they should have the problem fixed by noon. We went back to the Waffle House for breakfast. As there was very little to do or see in the immediate neighborhood (our motel was situated between a hospital and the University of Alabama), we went back to our room to watch TV and wait for the repair shop to call.


Just before noon, the call came in. The motel shuttle bus took us to the repair shop. We were so happy to see the Tahoe moving under its own power. We asked the mechanic for directions to the interstate, hopped in, and Joel cranked up. Then Joel noticed that our gas tank was only half full.

Now, you might remember that yesterday we had filled the tank about 30 minutes before the fuel pump died. We knew that the repair shop had needed to empty the gas tank to get to the fuel pump, and we expected that they would lose/spill a little gas in the process. But half a tank? No way. “It’s the principle of the thing,” Joel said, climbing back out of the truck to talk to the shop manager. A few minutes later, Joel came to my window. The technician who had worked on the Tahoe was at lunch but would be back in 15 minutes, and we were going to wait for his explanation. As it turned out, the technician did not know what had happened to our gas (yeah, sure), but they’d fill our tank for us. Another 10 minutes, and we were finally on the road.

We drove the interstate, what they’re currently referring to as “Corridor X” because it is not yet finished, from Birmingham to Holly Springs, Mississippi. We could have gone all the way to Memphis, but when we realized that we would be hitting south Memphis at rush hour, Joel said for me to get out the map and find us another way home. At Holly Springs, we got off the interstate and took a country road that would take us due north, through fields and farms, just the kind of driving we enjoy, and so calming after maneuvering among the 18-wheelers.

At the Tennessee state line, I zoomed in on the map and found a road through Fayette County – through Piperton and Hickory Withe - that would take us nearly to the Tipton County line and avoid almost all of the rush-hour traffic. As it turned out, our back-roads route was both shorter and quicker; we made it from Holly Springs, MS to home in about an hour and a half!

Alpharetta - Sunday - Heading Home (or so we thought)

With nowhere to be at any specific time today, we slept a little later, drank a couple of cups of coffee, showered, checked e-mail, and plotted our route home. We had a leisurely breakfast at the Peachtree Diner, conveniently located near our hotel. About 10 a.m., we hit the road. We decided to take a different route home, this time through Atlanta to Birmingham, then across Hwy. 78 to Memphis. Having lost our computer power (and hence our map program) on the way down, I decided to jot down all the turns from Atlanta to Birmingham, just to be safe. I used this note to guide us from Hwy. 400 in Roswell to the interstate in Atlanta. Unfortunately, I wasn’t wearing my glasses when I was writing down the directions, and what I thought was “Exit 48” was actually “Exit 4B.” Fortunately, we realized the error before we’d driven past the exit. I looked on down the list; I’d written down our next exit as “Exit 108.” Yeah, it was “Exit 10-B.”

We stopped for gas about an hour later, just outside Talladaga, Alabama (that’s “Talla-DAY-ger” to us Rednecks). We’d driven maybe 30 miles to Pell City, Alabama, when the Tahoe coughed a couple of times, a nasty, un-natural sound. Thinking quickly, Joel steered toward the nearest interstate exit and into the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant, where the Tahoe sputtered a few more times, then quit, altogether. It would not crank again. “I think it’s the fuel pump,” Joel said. We called AAA for roadside assistance around 12:30. They said they’d send a tow truck, and that we should be deciding where we wanted the vehicle towed.

This being Sunday, there were no repair shops open. There was no Chevrolet dealership or AAA-approved repair shop in Pell City; the closest one was in downtown Birmingham. The tow truck arrived at 3 p.m. It was starting to rain as the driver hooked the cables to the Tahoe and winched it onto the tow truck. Joel and I climbed into the cab with him – my first tow truck ride – and we headed to Birmingham in the pouring rain.
As we were bumping and bouncing down the interstate, my cell phone rang. It was my daughter-in-law, calling to tell me how my grandson had been wallowing in mud-holes all day. At the end of the conversation, she asked if I’d talked to my son, Josh. When I said that I had not talked to him, she told me a little piece of gossip that made me gasp. I turned to Joel to let him in on the news: “The boys were target shooting from Grandmother’s back porch last night, and Allen SHOT Jeremy!” I could near my daughter-in-law on the phone, still telling the story, saying, “…I mean, Jeremy’s OKAY – he didn’t even have to go to the hospital - the bullet just ricocheted off a tree and bounced off his stomach….” As I was passing the details along to Joel, I happened to look over at the tow truck driver. He was staring straight ahead, wide-eyed and grim, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. I patted him on the knee, and told him, “Don’t worry, hon, WE are not armed.”

The tow truck driver had come from Jacksonville, Alabama. He’d been to Birmingham a good many times but was not completely sure how to get to the dealership. Thanks to his GPS, we found the place. Nice man that he was, he then offered to drive us to a hotel. His GPS said there was one a mile away. Tired and disgusted, we said, “Go for it.” The driver’s thoughts must have been a million miles away, for before we’d gone six blocks from the dealership, he’d already run two red lights. When we finally reached the hotel, we weren’t thrilled with the looks of the place, but we chose to stay there over riding a few more miles in the tow truck. After that gunshot story, he was probably as glad to be rid of us as we were to be rid of him.

We had dinner at a nearby Waffle House. We didn’t get precisely the meal we ordered, and Joel noticed some flaky black stuff floating in my iced tea glass, but we were too tired to care (though I did make the waitress swap my tea for water). Back in our room, we discovered that we had no internet access and the batteries in the TV remote were nearly drained. We watched an episode of “Foyle’s War,” and called it a night.

Alpharetta - Saturday, The Weddidng

Sorry, blogfan(s), for my lack of diligence in chronicling this trip. It’s been a busy few days.

We came to Alpharetta not only to attend Andrea’s wedding, but also to help her parents with the preparations for the wedding. Our part was to make the floral centerpieces for the reception tables, and to help run errands. Since the wedding was to happen at 10:30 Saturday morning, the decorating needed to be finished by Friday night.

Our first business on Thursday was to get our bearings and make sure that our supplies were in order. Just after breakfast, we drove to Sandy Springs to the florist shop to make sure our flowers had arrived in good condition. (Many thanks to Charley Brown - seriously, that’s her name - of Flowers of Sandy Springs for ordering the flowers for me, and for giving me workspace to make the bride’s bouquet.) We then drove back to Alpharetta to find the Country Club of the South, where the wedding was to be held.

Let me pause here to complain about the asinine system of street naming in Alpharetta and Roswell. If we drove 100 miles in our errands around town, at least 50 of those miles were U-turns and loop-backs. You see, street names in this area are apt to change every few blocks. I suspect that the name changes occur at boundary lines that no longer exist or have been obscured by urban growth. Or, hell, maybe they just thought up a bunch of good names and wanted to use them all. Whatever the reason for the name changes, they wreak havoc for the unsuspecting motorist.

While I’m at it, let me also complain about the traffic in these two little towns. Gawd, Almighty, it’s bad. No matter where you go, no matter what time of day it is, every street is snarled with cars. Don’t these people have jobs? (They must, for the streets are crowded with Mercedes, BMWs, and Volvos.) Don’t they stop for dinner? Don’t they sleep? To make matters worse, while we were in town, Alpharetta was holding its annual “A Taste of Alpharetta” street fair, where local restaurants offered little samples of their best dishes. Near the center of town, streets were blocked off so that the vendors could set up their booths. The old phrase “you can’t get there from here” sprang to mind many times during our visit.

Thursday afternoon, we went by the bride’s parents’ home to load up things to take to the country club the next day. That night, we had a nice, quiet dinner, and went to back to our hotel to rest. Early Friday morning, we hit the ground running. First, we went to the country club to unload the things we’d picked up on Thursday afternoon, and then we drove to Sandy Springs so that I could make the bridal bouquet and pick up the fresh flowers for the centerpieces. By noon, we were back at the country club, unloading buckets of flowers. We went straight to work on centerpieces for 20 tables. By 5 p.m., we’d finished the centerpieces and were able to join the wedding party for cocktails and the rehearsal dinner. There was a little more decorating left to do, so after dinner we went back to the country club and started on the decorations on the lawn, where the ceremony was to take place. About 8:30 p.m., we heard thunder, but kept working. About 9 p.m., lightning was flashing all around us, and occasional drops of rain were beginning to fall. We packed up our supplies and went inside, hoping that it would not rain that night, or that if it did rain, it would not wash away our flowers. We crawled into bed at our hotel near midnight.

Saturday morning, we were back at the country club by 8:30. To our delight, the sun was shining, and the flowers we had set up on the lawn were still in place.

The wedding was beautiful. The groom looked handsome, the bride was gorgeous. The groom’s grandmother performed the ceremony. She did a fabulous job, and when her voice quivered with emotion, it only made the ceremony more touching. There were tears and smiles all around.

The reception was a blast. Good food, good music, good company.

At last, the bride and groom made their escape in a specially-decorated golf cart.

When the last guest had gone, the bride’s mother and I went straight to the bar. Elizabeth told the bartender, “I need something to drink, and I can’t decide between coffee and something stronger.”

“Are you the florist?” he asked.

“No, this is the florist,” she said, pointing at me. “I’m the mother of the bride.”

“In that case,” he exclaimed, “I recommend something stronger!” He poured two shots of tequila and handed one to each of us. “Can you ladies handle that?”

Elizabeth and I exchanged knowing looks.. “Susan introduced me to tequila at a Christmas party at her house,” she told the bartender. “The bride was conceived that very night!”

We knocked back the shots and collapsed onto lounge chairs as our wonderful husbands began taking down decorations and loading them into our cars.

Back at Elizabeth’s house, a cool breeze was blowing across the patio. A few friends and neighbors came by with snacks and drinks to help Elizabeth and Bill wind down. When a huge storm cloud moved in and dumped rain and hail on our party, we simply grabbed our chairs and moved to the garage.

Alpharetta - Wednesday - On the Road

East then south it is!

For the first leg of this trip, we chose a route that took us through Somerville, Tennessee, then through LaGrange, Grand Junction (home of the National Bird Dog Museum), and Middleton. This east-then-south route is 14 miles shorter than the south-then-east route through Memphis, but, in theory, takes 20 minutes longer.  What's 20 minutes when the choice is between (a) quiet, rural scenery and (b) staring up other people's tail-pipes?

A right-hand turn at Middleton sent us south to Walnut, Mississippi, where we picked up Hwy. 72. This highway runs all the way across the northern ends of Mississippi and Alabama. It is pretty country, hilly and green.

About 10:30, we crossed the Alabama state line. The soil here is a funky red color, like crushed bricks, but it grows corn, wheat, and cotton just fine. On one side of this highway, east of Tuscumbia, the winter wheat is starting to turn golden (it’ll probably be ready to harvest in a month), and on the other side, the corn is just getting started.  

We reached Huntsville around noon. Huntsville is all about NASA and the space program. There’s a “Space Camp” here where kids who are interested in space travel can come and pretend to be astronauts in training. All that Joel and I are interested in right now is a hamburger.

Around 2 p.m., we went through my favorite place, Fort Payne, Alabama. It’s a small town that lies in a valley. It is the home town of the country band, Alabama, and there’s a museum in their honor on the main drag. There’s also a little corner park that boasts statues of the four singers. Fort Payne is (wait for it) the sock capital of the world, and the last time I was here it had its very own Sock Museum. Graham, I so much wanted to get a picture of the Sock Museum for you, but it has either been moved or has closed. I shall investigate this further tonight, when I have internet access. A few miles outside of town is the Little River Canyon and Falls. The river originates on Lookout Mountain, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. There’s a scenic highway along the canyon with some absolutely breath-taking views. We did not take that drive today, but we did stop at the Falls and walk down to the water’s edge to take some pictures. It was as we returned to our car that I realized that I did not bring the USB cable to transfer the pictures from my camera to the computer. When we get to Alpharetta, I may look for a transfer cable that I can keep in the travel bag.

3:11 p.m. – Welcome to Gawgia. We just passed Gaylesville and are headed to Rome. When we get there, we intend to do as they’re doing. *snicker*

3:30 p.m. – We are in serious trouble!  The camera says the battery is about to go dead, so I plug the AC/DC converter thing into the cigarette lighter, and nothing happens. Worse, when the computer says ITS battery is about to go dead and I plug it in, nothing happens. I change out the fuse on the converter, nothing happens. The camera, I can live without for a few hours. However, we are navigating these Georgia back-roads using the computer’s map program, and if it goes down, we’re in trouble. I dig in the glove box for the old, hated, screaming GPS unit, hoping it can get us where we need to go. I despise this thing. It is so…demanding. At least the computer map program doesn’t back-talk or complain.

6 p.m. – We finally arrive at the hotel. The GPS unit took us around the world and back, but we’re here. And hungry. And stressed. We need food. We need tequila….

12 a.m. – What a nice evening it turned out to be. We ordered carry-out pizza and delivered it, along with a bottle of tequila, to the bride’s parents. We ate pizza and drank margaritas (hey, it was a bi-cultural meal) on the patio in the cool of the evening. Nice.

On the agenda tomorrow, errands and errands and errands, one of which includes a trip to the computer store for a new AC/DC converter and a camera transfer cable.

All Ready for Alpharetta - Wednesday

Today begins another Happy Trail. 

The destination:  Alpharetta, Georgia. 

The occasion:  the wedding of Andrea and Ben.  I've known Andrea since she was this big [---].  She is a might fine gal.  ;)

We have not yet decided whether to (a) start south and turn east or (b) start east and turn south.  Either way, we hope to be in Alpharetta by happy hour!