Rumi, the poet, calls you Beloved and i call you father or daddy. Both of us know your love and how you always come to find us when we hide in sorrow or pride. I used the present tense for both of us and you know why.
Watched the park employees driving out of the maintenance area on their way home last night. Lots of waving to each one. Two days here and I spread a bit of joy. Thank you daddy for the day, for friends, for dry kindling, for oatmeal and a can to cook it in, for being our beloved.
Took off for Dublin and found myself at a little convenience store just outside the park entrance. I waited for30 minutes until it opened. Discovered that they carried only cakes, cookies, candy and beer. Not exactly a good diet.
I walked up the next hill, passing a dead possum and a sign announcing Lupine Lane. Just over the rise I came to the junction with Dunkard's Road. I always read drunkards first when I see the word on a map. That road runs down to a hollow that was originally named Dunker's Hollow. Oh, the things you can learn by reading tourist bulletins.
I had just crossed the road when two pickups passed me by and then a woman coming from the other direction stopped. She asked where i was going, turned around and gave me a ride into Dublin. She took me right to the Walmart store by the back roads instead of the Interstate, so I would know the way to walk and hitchhike back.
I purchased some fruit and cheese, a pound of marked down hamburger and walked out the door. Surprise, there was the lady, whose name was Janet. Bless her, father. She teaches health as a professor at Johnston College in the Roanoke area. She gave me a ride all the way back to the park entrance.
I had a breakfast of hamburger patties, the whole pound. I was on my way to the dock to rig a mast and sail by 11am. The fire wood had taken some convincing to burn, mainly because of last night's hail and rainstorm. By 3pm I had a rig in place. The boats were bailed out, but I lost my oatmeal cooking/bailing can right at the end. It slipped from my fingers and sank. The water is 8 feet deep at the docks so I did not strip down to go fetch it. Much to public also.
It looked like another storm was building, so I set the sail in line with the length of the boats, tied it well and walked home, to my campsite. Last night before sleeping I called Jim Luckett of Instant Sailboat and arranged for an inflatable to be shipped after my Social Security check comes. i am getting a slightly used, slightly larger, but well patched 11 foot raft with stout oars. He will send a sail kit for it when I reach Bluestone Lake in West Virginia.
Resting now after gathering more dead-fall wood for the morning fire. I hope this wood burns hot enough to dry the gumwood the park folk brought me. The camp hosts for this section pulled in today. i thought they were trying to take a huge camper trailer down a very narrow roadway and hurried to stop them. But they were only setting to pull into the host site right by the shower house.
They have been hosts at this location for the past ten years. The Williams couple live in Rhode Island and she is a non-Hodgkin's cancer survivor. I will be talking more with them.
Life is good. Calling some of my kids tonight. Kay sent me a picture of the snow-covered street in front of her house. Snow in Wyoming and thunderstorm in Virginia. Bye Jesus, night Daddy.
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