It was the booze of times, it was the food of times.
Brent was good enough to give me a lift to the airport on his way home from work. I wanted to go early and use one of my complimentary United Club access cards. The freebie house red wine was flowing and I took full advantage.
The renovated Terminal 7 lounge features an outdoor terrace, so I sat outside amidst the planes and city lights and contemplated the universe.
And I kept refilling my wine glass. Had they poured a bit heavier I wouldn’t have needed to bug the bartender as often as I did… when the wine is free and seemingly of the 2 buck Chuck variety, quantity reigns over quality and customer service.
This was not the smartest of ideas. Alcohol does not become me. I had hoped it would help me sleep on the plane but the three hour leg to Chicago proved a sleepless slog.
I burned another lounge access card in ORD and ate even more junk food… but skipped the Bloody Mary’s and mimosas. I’m feeling unsurprisingly a mess…
Add to that a flat tire on my connecting flight to Memphis and miscommunications over boarding while maintenance did their thing (a five minute delay was corrected to be a 45 minute delay), and I no longer know which end is up.
Good thing the eighteen degree and then minus some windchill of the jetbridge has made me sober as a so called judge. I’m ready for the three hour drive from Memphis to Greenville, MS, once I arrive.
***
I don’t know if it’s lack of sleep or the lingering, debilitating ennui that seems to overwhelm. I do know this has been a hard day. Not anything super awful but death by a thousand papercuts with a splash of lemon juice.
Arriving at Memphis, the rental car counter told me that though I had prepaid the rental that didn’t include the local taxes and concession fees and I don’t know proton charging… bottom line I had to pay a 50% surcharge on my prepaid total. Swell.
Then the prior renter of the car must have topped up the tank to just kiss the full line as within a mile of leaving the airport, I was already down a bar.
The drive from Memphis to Greenville, MS, was a 2.5 hour affair… all on local route roads that would occasionally interrupt the flow of traffic with street lights, speed zone traps, and the like. No wonder the 138 miles would take so long.
On top of that, I either must have been lackadaisically driving OR everyone in this place is a terrible driver… probably a combo of both but honest to god it was like I was on a hidden camera show called “Road Rage.” Every conceivable driving nuisance was thrown at me — slow drivers in fast lanes, switching lanes without turn signals, leaving signals flashing, stopping in the middle of the road, U-turns… IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD AT HIGH SPEED… oh, and the giant styrofoam block that fell off a truck and disintegrating into a shower of white styrofoam snowflakes when struck by the car in front of me.
What…the…hell…Mississippi?!
I detoured in Lakeland to the birthplace of Kermit the Frog … and Jim Henson specifically. It was a silly little spot but had some nice early shots of the area, the river that inspired the Rainbow Connection opener for The Muppet Movie… AND a jumbo Kermit for snapping photos. The docent, who’s son in law built the bridge I’m running over tomorrow, offered to snap the photo for me… she didn’t have the greatest eye for shot composition. My own fault… I should’ve checked before leaving.
Driving into Greenville, the packet pickup was at the Greenville Mall. The best way I can describe the town and the mall is to say it’s as if a place that had never really seen better days bet on an expansion that never happened.
Here’s the expo, housed next to the gumball machines and in an abandoned store front inside the mall:
Someone had mentioned to my the Indian mounds on the outskirts of town. I googled it — the Winterville Mounds are part of Mississippi Mound Trail and represent an archaeological treasure trove of Native American architecture. Amongst the mounds at this site, one is 55 feet and is amongst the ten tallest in the USA. I watched a five minute video that was informative if a bit… rough around the edges. Perhaps though that added to its charm. Nonetheless, strolling the site, I was unable to even remotely frame a decent shot. So here’s a bunch of poorly framed ones… and this time I don’t have a docent to blame!
As I filled my gas tank, the keypad at the station didn’t work so there was no way to enter my zip code or cancel the transaction… I had to stand there waiting for it to time out. I used a different pump and was able to get my gas… but when I asked for a receipt, there was a PC Load Letter error message… of course there was.
Cut-cut-cut.
So to salvage the day, I ordered this: screw it, right?
But as I’m stuffing my face, I’m looking over the course map for tomorrow.
The distance is listed as 26.3 miles… but the turn by turn description has the “destination” as occurring at 23.03 miles.
And here I was thinking we’d all pretty much agreed since 1921 that the marathon distance is supposed to be 26.2 miles. Sigh…
We will see what tomorrow brings… what could possibly go worng?