COUNTRY ROADS...
I will continue my Tribute in Title to John Denver...
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is part 2 of 3. You will need to read Part 1 from yesterday to have it make sense.
So here we were, lost and alone, but together (one of the many enigmas we would face that evening). Thanks to my amazing navigatory skills mentioned earlier, (and moreso the Amazing Grace of God) I was able to get us back to 11N, but somehow we were north of all of the fuel stations we had seen on our earlier passthrough. We were coming up to a mall we had observed before, and we knew it had a Walmart, so we decided to drive over and see if they offered gas at this Super Center. They did not. We continued to drive around behind the mall and then down past it, until we were rewarded by the sight of a Sunoco station a mile or so further down the road. The price was not to my satisfaction, however I did not protest too long. After all, I was not paying anyway, Mom reminded me. We filled up and went inside to visit the Dunkin Donuts attachment.
The young man on duty at this late hour was evidently in costume as a surly, inadequately trained donut clerk (which he played to the hilt), as it took him forever to produce our simple order. I used some of this time to visit the restroom, which I couldn't help but notice smelled exceptionally fresh. I placed my wallet down, mentally reminding myself not to leave without it, which worked because a minute or two later, I was exiting the bathroom with it safely in hand. I went back out to the counter to discover that Skippy had still not managed to obtain the two coffees, a dunkacino and four donuts, that I had heard Mom order as I left. My sister shot me a woeful look, so I offered the good news that their bathroom was incredibly fragrant. She decided to wait it out in there and disappeared around the corner. I grabbed my dunk and donuts (at least mine were ready...) and headed out to the car to wait. A couple of minutes later they finally emerged and we headed back to Watertown.
The trip back was uneventful, except I must note that as soon as I cleared Poland again, gas stations appeared on both my left and right, and all at substantial savings. They mocked me mercilessly, because if only I had waited five more minutes we would have been halfway home by now. It would have saved us a lot of grief actually, some of which we were just becoming aware of. As we got closer to Watertown near midnight, my sister started getting all of her stuff together. "Are you sitting on my checkbook?", she asked hopefully. "Um, no." I replied. Mom searched the back seat in case it had slipped through there. We were nearing my house, so we decided to wait until we got there to check the car more thoroughly. We decided we'd stop there so I could grab some things to stay over at Mom's to save time in the morning, since she was 4o minutes closer to Dannemora than I was. Plus I wouldn't have to drive back from Mom's tonight.
Sherry didn't have any luck finding her checkbook, so we pulled out the gas receipt and called information to get the number of the station. The number she was connected to was not answering, so she decided it had closed for the night, so she would try again in the morning. I took her to the Watn. Walmart, where she had left her car, and followed her for twenty minutes as she started for Dekalb Junction, and Mom and I for Black River. Her checkbook was most likely in the freshest smelling bathroom in five counties, but that didn't produce any comfort for us. The thought that they had closed down for the night right after we left we thought might be good news, since we'd be able to get a clerk in there in the morning before anyone else could find it.
But besides the obvious problem of having her checkbook out there somewhere - perhaps the surly clerk took it home and was shopping on EBay even as we spoke - inside her checkbook were all of her IDs including her license, Sam's Club card, Visa Debit, and other equally important things, like a check for $1000.00 she was waiting to deposit the next day. And ifshe couldn't find it and get her license back, she'd be unable to visit our brother in the morning, as she would have no picture ID to produce during visitor processing. Plus she had another hour long drive home to ponder these things over, and over, and over, in her mind. After five days of nonstop drama, including an eight hour trip to Albany and back, she was not even going to be able to accompany us to see Joe. When we went to bed after 1 AM (knowing we'd have to be in touch with the prison by 7 AM), we still not know how my brother was, and what had happened, and we were feeling very dejected indeed.
Life calls,
Mom
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is part 2 of 3. You will need to read Part 1 from yesterday to have it make sense.
So here we were, lost and alone, but together (one of the many enigmas we would face that evening). Thanks to my amazing navigatory skills mentioned earlier, (and moreso the Amazing Grace of God) I was able to get us back to 11N, but somehow we were north of all of the fuel stations we had seen on our earlier passthrough. We were coming up to a mall we had observed before, and we knew it had a Walmart, so we decided to drive over and see if they offered gas at this Super Center. They did not. We continued to drive around behind the mall and then down past it, until we were rewarded by the sight of a Sunoco station a mile or so further down the road. The price was not to my satisfaction, however I did not protest too long. After all, I was not paying anyway, Mom reminded me. We filled up and went inside to visit the Dunkin Donuts attachment.
The young man on duty at this late hour was evidently in costume as a surly, inadequately trained donut clerk (which he played to the hilt), as it took him forever to produce our simple order. I used some of this time to visit the restroom, which I couldn't help but notice smelled exceptionally fresh. I placed my wallet down, mentally reminding myself not to leave without it, which worked because a minute or two later, I was exiting the bathroom with it safely in hand. I went back out to the counter to discover that Skippy had still not managed to obtain the two coffees, a dunkacino and four donuts, that I had heard Mom order as I left. My sister shot me a woeful look, so I offered the good news that their bathroom was incredibly fragrant. She decided to wait it out in there and disappeared around the corner. I grabbed my dunk and donuts (at least mine were ready...) and headed out to the car to wait. A couple of minutes later they finally emerged and we headed back to Watertown.
The trip back was uneventful, except I must note that as soon as I cleared Poland again, gas stations appeared on both my left and right, and all at substantial savings. They mocked me mercilessly, because if only I had waited five more minutes we would have been halfway home by now. It would have saved us a lot of grief actually, some of which we were just becoming aware of. As we got closer to Watertown near midnight, my sister started getting all of her stuff together. "Are you sitting on my checkbook?", she asked hopefully. "Um, no." I replied. Mom searched the back seat in case it had slipped through there. We were nearing my house, so we decided to wait until we got there to check the car more thoroughly. We decided we'd stop there so I could grab some things to stay over at Mom's to save time in the morning, since she was 4o minutes closer to Dannemora than I was. Plus I wouldn't have to drive back from Mom's tonight.
Sherry didn't have any luck finding her checkbook, so we pulled out the gas receipt and called information to get the number of the station. The number she was connected to was not answering, so she decided it had closed for the night, so she would try again in the morning. I took her to the Watn. Walmart, where she had left her car, and followed her for twenty minutes as she started for Dekalb Junction, and Mom and I for Black River. Her checkbook was most likely in the freshest smelling bathroom in five counties, but that didn't produce any comfort for us. The thought that they had closed down for the night right after we left we thought might be good news, since we'd be able to get a clerk in there in the morning before anyone else could find it.
But besides the obvious problem of having her checkbook out there somewhere - perhaps the surly clerk took it home and was shopping on EBay even as we spoke - inside her checkbook were all of her IDs including her license, Sam's Club card, Visa Debit, and other equally important things, like a check for $1000.00 she was waiting to deposit the next day. And ifshe couldn't find it and get her license back, she'd be unable to visit our brother in the morning, as she would have no picture ID to produce during visitor processing. Plus she had another hour long drive home to ponder these things over, and over, and over, in her mind. After five days of nonstop drama, including an eight hour trip to Albany and back, she was not even going to be able to accompany us to see Joe. When we went to bed after 1 AM (knowing we'd have to be in touch with the prison by 7 AM), we still not know how my brother was, and what had happened, and we were feeling very dejected indeed.
Life calls,
Mom
posted by R's Mom @ 2:57 PM
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