On the Porch
Onisha Ellis
September 8, 2017 Day 2
Hurricane Irma continued to confuse the heck out of those in her path. Our daughter had offers of homes to share, should she decide to evacuate but like the storm, she couldn’t make up her mind.
Leaving Florence, Alabama (after getting a half-dozen of Krispy Kreme doughnuts for the road) we continued on US highway 72 .The road was for the most part, four lanes with a good distance between towns and light traffic. We marveled at the blessing of this laid back travel. Even though I had multiple books downloaded, should we become bored with the road or each other, I had yet to play one. After 46 years of marriage, we still found things to talk about.
Our back roads adventure ended in Memphis, Tennessee where we had decided to travel the rest of our westward journey on Interstate 40. Once we navigated through the city of Elvis, the interstate was not horrible. We decided to stop at the Arkansas welcome center for a bathroom break. While I was browsing their brochures the hostess asked if we were evacuating from Hurricane Irma. I explained that we were on a planned vacation and was surprised to learn that the welcome center was seeing a lot of evacuees. This did not ease my “mother” heart.
Later,we enjoyed a late lunch at a rest stop. I had bought two pecks of apples before our trip and ate one everyday at lunch. We hauled those apples over 5,000 miles!
We arrived at our hotel in Fort Smith, Arkansas, tired and hungry. One of my goals on this trip was to not eat in chain restaurants but Denny’s was nearby and an Original Grand Slam sounded good. I was too tired to work at chewing!
When I made our travel plans, I scheduled in a rest day, every third day, so we spent two night in Fort Smith. My hope was to explore the nearby Adirondack mountains but hubby was exhausted and needed a rest. When we were going up to our room the first night we spoke with an older couple in the elevator. They were from Jacksonville, Florida and fleeing Hurricane Irma. They appeared dispirited and weary. My heart broke for them. On our rest day, we visited the local shopping area and saw the couple again. I hope that meant they had decided to end their evacuation.
some of the hangers where the museum’s aircraft are now housed. Among notable aircraft built by Fairchild during and shortly after WWII included the PT-19/PT-23/PT-26 Cornell trainers, the AT-21 Gunner twin-engine trainer, the C-61 Argus (For the RAF), and the C-82 Packet, C-119 Flying Boxcar and the C-123 Provider cargo planes. The museum wasn’t officially open, but one of the guys working at the airport hangar (where “Greta” delivered me) agreed to show me the museum’s aircraft collection and tell me a little about Fairchild’s roll in wartime Hagerstown.
medical treatment used on the fighting men during the Civil War. It is surprising to me that as many men as did, survived their treatments, surgeries and amputations during that war. I guess the main reason for their survival rate was that they were young and healthy when they went into the war. It makes one appreciate modern medical practices such as the advances in cleanliness, antiseptics, surgical applications and especially prosthetics technology.
front of the museum just long enough to go in and ask where to park. I couldn’t have been in the museum more than 3 or 4 minutes, but when I came out to move my car I had a parking ticket and the writer of that ticket was nowhere to be seen. He/she must have been lurking in some doorway, close by, just waiting for me to walk away from my car, because the ticket was a computer print-out with a “lot” of automobile information that had to have been observed and entered into their hand-held device. Man, was that fast! Needless to say, that was a costly museum visit.
Old Things R New 