Roadside America

Ooh, look, the house next to my sister’s is for sale. We could be neighbors…
1) If I did move back to South Carolina, it wouldn’t be that close.
2) It would back in Aiken which is a mere 2 hours away
3) The traffic in Greenville/Spartanburg is nuts.
4) It is about $100k more than I could afford.

Like Santa Fe there is a Dunkin’ about a mile and a half away, and I’ve been there both mornings so far and will again one more time before I head out into the wilds of Western North Carolina.

After breakfast the BIL and I took a 2-1/2 mile walk around their subdivision’s property and ponds, dodging the goose poop on the sidewalks. The number of geese here greatly overshadows the flock that hangs around the Salish Ponds back in Fairview.

Diane and I went out to lunch at a local pizza place to spare Allen the sight and smell of us eating, pizza for me and a meatball grinder for her. He has a colonoscopy tomorrow, so he had to “feast” on orange jello and plain chicken broth.

This afternoon Allen and I hung up all his UCONN basketball memorabilia in the home theater room. There were also a couple of other photos and artworks that needed hanging too. There are more things needing hanging, but we ran out of time.

If I don’t have anything as exciting as this tomorrow, I’ll write about this morning’s fuse buying fun.

I had a near perfect drive (just a couple 18-wheelers) along 2-lane roads that I’ve driven dozens of times before. Also, luckily for me my sister and husband live east of the city of Greenville in an area that has yet to be turned into a shopping center meca or 1,000 unit apartment development.

Long digression as a lead-in to the rest of the story:
Back in February, I had a root canal done on the back left upper molar. It had bothered me for quite some time. I was quite used to chewing on the right side, but had developed a pus-filled bump that troubled me. After the procedure I was given antibiotics to clear any remaining infection. Soon the bump went away, and I had to relearn how to use the left side of my teeth.

The rest of the story:
Fast forward to last Thursday, and the bump returned. I could still chew on the left, no more nerve there, but apparently the infection had returned. On Friday I called my dentist back in Oregon and asked if they could send a prescription to a local pharmacy. They said they really couldn’t and I should find a local dentist. As it happened, I was staying in the town I lived in for 30 years, so I looked him up, and, well, like every other dentist in town, he didn’t work on Fridays.

So, today, the very first thing I did was find a local dentist that could fit me in. It was almost noon, and they had an opening at one o’clock! They were 45 minutes away. We all piled in the BIL’s CX-5 and headed that way. They dropped me off and headed to Blimpie for lunch, promising to bring back a sub.

They took some X-rays to confirm my infection and said that when I get back, the root canal would have to be redone or the tooth pulled and an implant put in. They did write a script for amoxicillin, so hopefully that’ll clear up the infection ’til then.

 
One of the three couples from the Miata Club that was supposed to be at Friday’s pizza dinner had a family emergency, so they couldn’t make it. So, we had a make-up meal at a Cracker Barrel with them this morning.

On my way there I cruised through a nearly empty downtown Augusta so I could grab today’s Roadside America photo, a statue of the Godfather of Soul.

It was billed as a breakfast, but for me, an early riser, it was really a brunch that was verging on lunch. We were down one couple from Friday, so once again it was a group of 5. If we had wanted to wait another 45 minutes (this would then have really qualified as lunch), we could have gotten 2 tables pushed together. No one did, so we pulled up an extra chair and scrunched around one table.

If you have ever been to a Cracker Barrel, you’d know that they don’t scrimp on portion size. Four of the five of us ordered meals that included at least two plates, meaning there really wasn’t enough room for everything, so with some quick thinking, three of us pushed our two big pancakes to one side and dumped the eggs and bacon in the clear area so we could fit everything on the table.

This afternoon I went back over to the house of my friends from my Aiken Bicycle Club days. I was there yesterday, and we had a cookout along with their younger son’s wife and cute-as-shit 2-year-old daughter. I wanted to return the tupperware that held a fresh brownie and pick up my cooler bag I’d forgotten at their place. Today it was just us adults, and we watched their favorite team, the Atlanta Braves, whoop up on my favorite team, the FRS.

Tomorrow is a short drive upstate to spend some time with my sister.

 
Today’s Roadside America photo is of a very Big Cup outside an empty building. The cup has gone through several name changes (Lily Tulip – Solo – Dart), due to corporate mergers, but it remains a cup among giants.

So as not to slight the founder of North Augusta, SC, by posting a photo of the City of Aiken’s founder on Thursday, I took a selfie with James Urquhart Jackson this morning. I cannot find any information on how accurate his statue’s likeness is, but maybe because he founded his town in the 1890s compared to Mr. Aiken’s some 50 years earlier, there might have been actual photos of Mr. Jackson.

Because I was a dodo head when I made my VRBO reservation for my stay in the Aiken/Augusta area, what I thought was 5 nights turned out to be 3. When I realized my mistake, it was too late to stay in that one place I had picked out in North Augusta. So, I made a separate reservation for 2 nights in a B&B just south of Aiken. That’s the lead photo above, and it is called The Birdnest Inn.

When I checked in, the host mentioned that I had reserved the smallest room in the place, but seeing as I am the only guest, she upgraded me to the largest room. As with 95% of Bed & Breakfast places, it is decorated with impeccable style and usually in theme with the name of the inn, and this is no exception. I’m staying in the Mockingbird Suite, but there is no mockingbird decor, but I do have chickens, so I’ll have fresh eggs for breakfast.

 
Today’s photo is of the Meriwether Monument in Calhoun Park near downtown North Augusta that Roadside America has labeled – Monument to a White Supremacy Martyr

Just like the Santa Fe failed proposal prank back in January, I never did get everything together to prank my Miata Club peeps tonight. I was meeting with three couples to have pizza this evening and thought it would be fun to riff on the Alan Alda movie The Four Seasons and the new Netflix series based on that movie. If you are familiar with either the movie or TV show, maybe you can intuit what I was hoping to do. If not, follow along. The plot of The Four Seasons is based on three middle-aged couples who are good friends that vacation together 4 times a year. In the very first season, one of the husbands decides he wants a divorce from his wife. So the next season when they vacation together, the husband shows up with a much younger woman, and the ex-wife is nowhere to be found.

Because I’m nearly 70 years old, a much younger woman would be 40-45, and I don’t have a real good friend that has a female child that I knew and could borrow for an hour for the prank. I suppose I could have signed up on a dating app, but I’m not really dating, and I’m in a whole different zip code. I might have tried a university theater major, but would any one of them have bought the story? I’m betting alarm bells would be ringing loudly with that pitch. Today at lunch I went out with my Edward Jones rep, who Donna and I kept when we moved west, and her two employees. And truth be told, either one of them would have been perfect for the job and would have had good shock value. They were both probably in their high twenties or low thirties; one was African American, and the other was blonde with several tattoos. But, while friends with the Edward Jones advisor, she doesn’t know me that well to approve the plan. Plus, once again, I’ve only spoken a few times to either of these two women; I couldn’t, or really wouldn’t, ask.

Maybe if I do move back this way, I’ll start planning earlier…

Actually, Day 1 started yesterday; I met with a friend from the Miata Club days. She was actually one of the 12 founders of the Masters Miata Club back in the early 90s. I met her and her husband at their favorite watering hole, where we had dinner and drinks. NA beer for me, sweet tea for her, and some wine for her husband, who wasn’t driving—that’s right, PARTEE!

 
This morning, the actual Day 1, I drove over to Aiken and went for a walk in Hitchcock Woods, where Donna and I spent many a day exploring trails. In the time we lived in Aiken, I think we probably walked on every trail in there at least once. On the way into town I passed a billboard that featured a photo of the realtor who sold us our house back in 1989 when we first moved to Aiken. She also helped us sell that same house in 2019 when we moved to Oregon.

On a whim – no, that’s sort of a lie – I had looked at Zillow back in Oregon and picked a place I thought I’d like to possibly live, and if my favorite, and only, Aiken realtor was in her office, I’d see if she’d show some properties. She was, and she did. The first place we looked at had 2 bedrooms, two baths, and a 2-car garage, which is exactly what I’d want. The other two were non-starters, one too small and the other too big. The thing is I could afford to live here comfortably. And while there is a small chance that I’d move back here for that reason and the built-in friend group, I really like living out west. It’s a fallback position.

Later in the afternoon I met up with another Miata Club couple for coffee and a chat. They stopped going to club events back during COVID. They still have their Miata and do drive it occasionally. The club is still in existence, but it has mostly become a supper club of people who happen to drive the same model of car. Tomorrow is dinner with three Miata Club couples. I wonder if any of them are still in the club or even have a Miata in the household.

Okay, enough of that. For today’s Roadside America picture, I give you, Atomic Waste Container Art. I’ve noticed that the east side of the Mississippi really doesn’t do big things like they do out west. Not far from the waste container is a statue of the person the town is named for, William Aiken Sr. He was the president of the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company. He never set foot in the town, and because there were no known pictures of him, the artist used photos of descendants and other folks from that time period to create his “likeness.” Because of that, he deserves to be listed on the Roadside America site probably more than an atomic waste container, but what do I know?