I had the goal of reaching Greensboro, NC by noon to pick up Chris Dodds and then meet Aidan by lunch necessitating Suzie, Mike, and I leaving my house by 4 AM.  Part of why Mike and I get along well is a valuing of time. If we set a deadline or target point, we intend to keep it, and having previously done spot-on departures at 8 AM and 6 AM, we considered 4 AM a reasonable next step.  Suzie literally didn’t sleep but still nearly missed our 4 AM departure time and as the target minute approached and she hurriedly packed in not-quite terror as Mike and I simply began shoving her belonging into things, some of which were my car.  4 AM rolled around and we were beyond the boundary of my driveway meaning that, having reaching our target leave time, the road trip gods would shower favor upon us.

The drive to Greensboro, NC was uneventful but I slept fitfully.  Mike enjoys podcasts, as do I, but I have great trouble falling asleep in the presence of human speech (work meetings excluded) so when I woke to Gary Whitta and Will Smith on Tested, I smiled, having planned for this, and put in ear plugs… which succeeded in merely dampening the road noise making the voices come through clearly.  I then put on noise-cancelling headphones which also just made the voices still further clarion.  Mike politely switched to music until I was back to sleep and then switched back to podcasts until I was awake again when he switched it back to music but only after I talked to him for like 45 minutes during time I said I had to sleep.  I am still a terrible passenger.

We picked up Chris on time and strolled around Greensboro attributing quotes on statues to the wrong people as Aidan was running late.  I also got a nice picture of a very pretty rain spout/gutter track.

I enjoyed meeting Aidan, but on reflection it was somewhat odd. One could say I met a fellow member of Team Interrobang or one could say I abducted an under-aged student I met online, taking him from his French class, took him to a pub, surrounded him with beer, took dozens of pictures of him, and then trespassed on school property to return him. He didn’t seem to mind.

I don’t know if Chris’s tattoos would help or hurt him being charged with pederasty.

After our hurried late lunch, we arrived early for a hurried early dinner where we met Chris and Jody who gave us the fruit of her apiary. It’s a testament to the maturity of my group that no one made a “we tasted your girlfriend’s honey” joke but that may have been from us having been dead tired. Dinner passed nicely at Carrabba’s and I learned far more about barrel-racing and Mac repair than I thought I would today.

Chris and Jody may be relocating in a bit. I look forward to their new home being possibly more on the way to other points I tend to more often traverse.

Our last stop for the day was outside of Atlanta to stay with Reuben. Reuben was glad to see us:

I had experienced a 36 hour day by the time I called it a night. I’m glad there was fruit salad.