Adventure Home

Sorry I haven't been on here for a while. As usual things seem to get busy and well, you know.

I titled this as Adventure Home so you'll get a good idea on what last Tuesday was like for me. I left the jobsite in Aiken, SC and drove to Spartanburg to drop off some materials to another contractor that we'll be working with on another new job in that area. So I decided to put my new GPS unit to good use and find a way home other than going all interstate. It gets tiring driving interstates all of the time, trust me. So with a few swift fake button pushes, a few minor corrections, off I went, Spartanburg, SC to Harnett County, NC.
The trip started off reasonably enough. I knew I'd have to drive some interstate to get to Charlotte, my next exit, and traffic flowed pretty well. My goal was two lane roads starting on the east side of Charlotte and following those home.

The next thing I know I'm driving, literally, through downtown! And I'm driving a "company vehicle," which is a Ford F-350 Superduty, long bed, crew cab. This thing is 30'-0" long by itself. Amazingly enough, I breezed through downtown. The suburbs is where I ran into delays. Eventually things weeded out some and I was on the two lane roads I was looking for.

You get to really see a lot when you take the back roads. A lot of farms where the corn is dying, place where American Pickers need to go, and the occasional dog. I eventually passed through Uwharrie National Forest. My youngest son and myself have been here several times as it makes a good warm-up to the backpacking season and it is not that big, so we're able to get a two nighter there. It had rained about 1/2 hour before I got to the forests' entrance and had cooled down enough for me to put the windows down. Driving through it had the damp, woodsy smell that reminded me of how much I love the forests. I had forgotten where one of the trailheads was at along my route or I would have stopped for some pictures (maybe next time.) I continued my journey homewards and passed without almost noticing Tobacco Road Golf Course. It's supposed to be one of the hardest in the country and I would like to go and find out some day. Maybe not. Well, it was almost dark and I was about 20 miles from the homestead, windows down, arm on the sill, turning a long right hand curve in the road, minding my own business, WHAM! A truck going the opposite direction came into my lane and hit the mirror. It folded in and threw mirror shards all over the inside of the truck, a piece broke off and hit me in the head, and I honestly was stunned. I stopped but they didn't. There was no way for me to turn around so I decided to go into town and see how bad the damage was. I was pissed.

But I am also glad I didn't have my arm/hand out of the window like I sometimes do. Sent an email to the boss that night. Actually I still am angry. So this was the end of my trip. What a crappy way to end an otherwise nice evening drive. 

Well, I have another post coming up with news from the homestead so stayed tuned for that. Stay safe out there kids and keep your arms and legs inside of the vehicle at all times.