Sunday, February 18, 2007

Another day, more people.

today we woke up late. again. we're working on that. headed out to meet Sara Dzimianski.in Athens, about 2 hours away. it's feels like a long drive, most of it's at 80mph. just keeping up with normal traffic tho. nothing abnormal here. the drive is set to Knicely's life soundtrack. he's picked the music since we arrived in Georgia, and I can't complain. lots of jazz and blues. I don't mind at all.

We miss her road. pull into a small roadside diner, and fishtail in the gravel. and old couple in their Sunday best gives us dark looks as the spray of gravel narrowly misses their car. I don't think Knicely or Sam notice.

We pull up in her drive way, there's a gate. and a sign, which reads something about vicious dogs, do not open, honk and wait. it sounds serious. Knicely tells me to open the gate. why me? I'm in the backseat, SAM should be doing it. but no, it's me. they tell me to watch out for the dog, and drive through as soon as I get the gate open, not waiting for me. I walk to the house, there doesn't seem to be any dogs. (later in the day I'll meet the dog. it's actually a small bear. white. I like it.)

we meet Sara D. she's pretty cool. we go see her goats, who stand up to meet us and release their bowels. interesting way of greeting. we also meet the lady she lives with, Linda. more on her later.

we head out to find dinner, but first we stop by her friends house. Bo and Carrie. these 2 ppl are awesome. I am blown away. they're first of all hobbits. this is not meant as an insult in anyway. it has nothing to do with their height. but they're hobbits. their house is Bag End. I love it. it feels safe. and it feels very underground. even tho it's not. and Carrie laughs and smiles, and BO has a library of old books and stories. everything about them reminds me of hobbits. they're human, down-to-earth. Bo's an Episcopalian priest. I really liked him, and wish I could attend one of his sermons. sadly 2 hours is a bit far to drive. but I do hope to meet them again someday.

from there we went to meet Sara's fiancee, Ronald.(or Ronny.) he appears to be a good ol' boy. he has a really strong southern accent. makes you think he's a redneck. but ya can't judge a ship by it's glass walls. or whatever the saying is. Ronald tells us he has over 13,000 books, and Sara later tells me he's read most of them. he's well educated, knowledgable about philosophy, great people skills. a really neat guy. just got to look past first appearance.

after dinner we head downtown, walk around, find a coffee shop, taste the local brand, and decide we're not in the mood for acting big, so we head back to Sara's house. there we meet Linda again. she's making herself peanut butter on graham crackers. she says something about the recall of peanut butter, and how she's taking a risk. as she puts the jar away she suddenly remembers that she has a whole jar of salmonella, and offers us some. I think what's in my peanut butter is enough and decline. I like her sense of humor tho. she's not at all what I expected. she's opinionated and very intelligent. Sara and Sam go watch TV while Knicely and I sit at the table and talk with her. we discuss government, war, Iraq, Vietnam, and several other topics which escape my mind. we move the the porch so she and Knicely can smoke. she talks more, and we learn she was a paramedic, her husband worked for the Department of Defense, and they traveled alot overseas. she talks about the area that she lives in, and it's history. eventually the cold starts to get to us, and we head in to join sara and Sam. after a while we realize it's pretty late, and so we head home. and that's my day. no amazing activities, just incredible people.

3 comments:

Mary-Beth said...

your day sounds like something right out of a book. its really amazing. I love it.

Anonymous said...

So I have to say this is interesting reading...I am a friend of Ben and Sarah's and read about your trip on a post of xanga and I was intrigued so I have marked this page as a favorite and plan on trying to keep up...Be safe and have the time of your lives.
Candice Stott

Anonymous said...

So I FINALLY find this site.... and since it took forever to figure out what to put my name as so you'd know who I was and not think I was the other Sarah, I might just start going SfS. You'll remember that, I hope, lol

Sam's better at typing than you Anze :D :p

I liked the tale of the Great Escape... I am glad yall made it out of there without too much more trouble. Sounds like your trip is going well so far, even though I"ve no idea who anyone is other than the two of you. And you mention food, so I know you're not starving.