Road Trip To Anderson S.C.
I road-tripped to S.C. to visit Mom again, and she's hanging in there, thanks. There's more pain, more pain medicine, but we had a nice visit and talk, and I drove back home last night. She remains in the Hospice facility, receiving excellent care, and I was able to connect with her nurse after I informed them that I was an RN. So now I can call for updates and get a direct line on Mom's condition.

The Drive
The dominant impression I have from my 3-hour drive up and 3-hours back is smell. Yeah, I go the back way from Macon, through Athens, all on 2-lanes, passing log trucks and the occasional backroad Floridian who droves way below my speed limit. But the smell, or should I say smells. The tangy smell of fresh-killed skunk hit me in the face while passing a large soil and mulch farm, which didn't smell much better than the skunk. I passed several cow pastures and got the waft of, well, cow pies. And the final blow was something that smelled like cows with indigestion producing a new, more pungent methane that left a residue in my nose for a few miles.

The Meal
I got a double cheese burger from Pete's Drive-In in Anderson, and it was a true hamburger made from beef instead of whatever Mickey-D's uses. Even though I told them to leave the bacon off and there was no salt on the fries, it did the trick. Kept me awake for almost an hour on the road, then I got sleepy and wondered why I didn't get a nap or something. But I made it home through the mist of a humid night of 72° here in my beloved South.