Fri, Apr 29, 2011
Saturday, April 30, 2011 at 12:17AM Friday, April 29, 2011
A good day on the road brings happy sleep. – Donna Downey
A carrot… that is what I use to entice myself to work. Not a literal carrot but some type of reward that I promise myself if I will “bear down” and just “git er done” then I can have it. When I was studying for the CPA exam I had two pictures taped to my computer monitor. One was a gray horse and the other was a motorcycle. After months of nothing but work and study I slapped those three capital letters behind my name, pulled the pictures from my monitor and dropped them in the trash. They had done their duty and it was time to move on. Sometimes I do actually allow myself whatever small incentive I have come up with. Sometimes it is just a cup of coffee and a break… but to get myself thru a typical tax season requires the promise of a road trip, a long road trip and it must come to pass. No dropping pictures in the trash and going back to work!
This tax season was particularly difficult. Mother Nature and the IRS would make sure of it. This would be the first tax season we would be required to efile all our returns. This meant more fees to the IRS of course and a long application to get approval to be an efiler. It also added additional steps to our very fine tuned process. Due to the very late passing of additional tax laws the IRS delayed the “start date” that we could begin to submit returns. While we were steadily getting the kinks worked out, Mother Nature thru the crud at us. Renee got it first and being the trooper she is, she fought thru it and worked every day but it was hard on her and us. Then Jean got it and it took her down. She fought it but soon it had settled in and along with wearing her out it took her voice as well. We tried everything… trips to the doctor, home remedies, but she just couldn’t kick it. She worked as much as she could and sometimes Renee and I would take turns translating her whispers to the client. It was not a pretty picture.
Luckily, I guess, I made it without meeting Mr. Crud. So, I was able to work 61 straight days, 7 days a week, from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm. about 750 hours… but not without that carrot! At the end of this ghastly schedule would be a nice long relaxing road trip… a road trip filled with rest, walks, beautiful sights, photography and time to enjoy my spouse and our pups… and so it begins.
Yesterday was my last day at work. Having done my packing before leaving for the office, Charles would gather everything else and take care of all the things that need doing before we can leave two businesses and a farm behind while we ramble the western US. I finished up at 6:00 pm (an early day for me) and headed home. Charles had the Jeep ready and after a quick snack we headed to the Riley Center (with the pups in the back seat) to catch the Bruce Hornsby concert. We made it to the Gallery level just as they cut the lights and after fumbling out way to our seats, enjoyed an incredible concert. It was worth staying in town to hear but it was one of the longest concerts thus far at the Riley Center so we left Meridian headed West about 10:30 pm.
We don’t like interstate travel so driving after dark via interstate is no problem. We’re just trying to get to a good jumping off point. We made it to Vicksburg and decided it would be safer to stop and found a nice clean room at the Jameson Inn. Actually it cost more to fill up the Jeep this morning than it did for the motel room. That was a little unnerving.
It was a beautiful day that started out cool and crisp. Beautiful blue skies lay in front of us looking down the Interstate and we made the decision to drive on to Texas before getting off the big slab. A perfect breakfast at the Cracker Barrel in West Monroe, LA gave way soon enough to a good BBQ sandwich for lunch at Bodacious BBQ in Kilgore, TX. Then it was on to the smaller two lane roads… windows down… solving the world problems and saying a prayer for those who were so terribly devastated by the tornadoes of Wednesday. We were spared by just a few short miles between us and the killer tornado that tore thru northern Clarke County.
I know I was tired after so many days of work but poor Charles didn’t have much of a talking partner today. As soon as we put the windows down and I felt that warm dry breeze I was snoozing. I would wake up for brief periods of conversation and even drove a couple of times but as soon as I got back in the passenger seat and got comfortable… well it was off to dream land again.
We made a nice stop at a playground in the small community of Clifton, Texas to enjoy the warm breezes and let the pups play for a while. So that was the extent of my picture taking for today.
We made it to Llano, TX in time to watch the sunset over the Llano river and will probably stay another night here. Although normally the hill country would be blanketed with wild flowers, Texas is suffering from an extreme drought and there are more wildfires than wild flowers this year. Still, we enjoy the area and will probably spend tomorrow in search of whatever flowers we can find and hopefully a running body of water for the pups to play in.
I have to remind my wonderful friends, family and acquaintances this journal is not meant to be a great literary work but simply a place to jot down my thoughts about all the things we experience on a good road trip. If you read this far in today’s entry, you may have had enough already! If not, please join us when you can and I hope to provide you with something of interest somewhere along the way. One of the great things about your family and your dearest friends is they act like they enjoy all of this and even encourage it! Got to love them.
Hope you all are well as we begin.
Peace, Hope & Love,
Donna, Charles, Paris & Dodger
Reader Comments (1)
So glad to be reading this. A well deserved respite from a grueling tax season! Love y'all, stay safe, and have fun......