Date: 2009-04-25
From: Home

To: Damascus
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

I said bye-bye to G and Dolly and cried a little as we drove off around 6:30pm. C was mad at me because I had cut the wire to the CO detector in the Roadtrek (again).It had done this before and C told me to remove the fuse when it starts beeping in the middle of the night. This time my stubby fingers couldn't get it out. I knew when I cut it I shouldn't have, but if I wanted to sleep, I had no choice. He discovered the cut wire Friday morning. It kinda made leaving easier. When you are with someone for 10+ years, there are a million transgressions and a thousand sorry's. Sometimes its just easier to quit.Anyways, we drove to South Carolina just north of the I-95/I-26 intersection. We had Taco Bell around 10:30pm and slept from about 4am-9am. I dozed several times while on the road, but still had a hard time getting up in the morning. C was all chipper and ready to dump me out. I realized on the way up I had forgotten to put my tie-dyed T-shirt in with my hiking clothes :0( I bought a $6 "You're Fired" red shirt at the gas station. We stopped a couple hours later at a Chik-fil-a where I promptly spilled ketchup all over myself. We also got our first South Carolina geocache there. I had coordinates for I-77 but fell asleep and woke up in North Carolina. C woke me up - something about a rest area - I just muttered "no". Now why would you wake someone up to ask them if they need to rest???Just a few hours from Damascus we stopped to stretch and look at the map. A woman pulled up next to us and as I was watching her shy little dog, she yelled "You want a dog?" I thought she was being silly, but it turns out she had just found a stray who's littermate had been hit by a car. She had four big dogs at home and was going to have to take this humble little dachsund-mix to the pound when they open Monday. If it were up to me, we would've said "No thanx" because I would be away for several months, but C wanted her and said if he didn't take her, he would always wonder about her. She was very submissive and quiet. C got a can of dogfood at the gas station. She licked the gravy off and drank some water. I picked her up and she was so weak she felt like a bony ragdoll. She is teething and I'm pretty sure she has kennel cough. After she slept on my lap for an hour or so, she perked up a bit. Despite all the water she drank, she hadn't pee'd by the time C dropped me off. C named her "Ruffles" because she was in such 'rough' shape.I signed in, gave C a tour, and layed out my sleeping pad and bag on a bottom bunk upstairs at The Place. C hugged me a few times and gave me $100. I headed out to the outfitter. Of course they had wide-mouth Nalgenes. I also got talked into a waterproof compression sack for my sleeping bag. I had a Ruff time with a waterproof sack for my big new 0-degree bag. It involved cutting, hand-sewing and getting Seam-Grip all over my hands. It said on the Seam-Grip tube to avoid prolonged skin contact, but the goop wouldn't come off for about four days.After the outfitter I went to Dollar General for a $4 SpongeBob watch, drinks and bologna sandwich stuff. There were about 20 Boy Scouts at The Place. Nearly every bunk was full and there were a bunch of tenters outside. It was noisy, and one of the boys must've missed his mom because he kept coming in and talking to me (until the group leader chased all the boys downstairs). I was sooo tired but the noise kept me from napping.