One Hundred Days...40 Days In

Well, I made it past Independence Day. And it was tough too. I wanted to stop. Everything. The walking. The writing. The walking. And the writing. I wrote nearly twice that much last November but I think my problem then was that I gave myself a deadline. When I reached the end of the month, I could take the Holidays off, which I did and the next few months after that. On the Saturday before Independence Day, Mom and I took a trip and did what we do best: Loafer. Until me moved south of the sweet tea line (which is Kentucky/Ohio border in the midwest) and into North Georgia, loafer was not a word we were accustomed to using in everyday conversations. It's one of those colloquial terms that you might find in various parts of the country, but I've never heard it anywhere besides North Georgia. Mom and I are fancy and we don't just loafer, but we add "ing" to the word and go loafering. When we are loafering you can bet two things will be involved: yard sales and food. Neither of us are known for our ability to bypass either of those two things. On more than one occasion we have even eaten and yard-saled in the same place and came out with a treasure of some kind and a bad case of heartburn or worse. We've learned to be a bit more picky about where we stop. We took a 60-mile shortcut to go 50 miles up the road. In other words, we took the scenic route. We drove to Hiawassee, Georgia and traveled around Lake Chatuge before stopping in at the McDonald's there for a potty break and a large sweet tea. Not many things will tempt Mom away from her Diet Pepsi, but the large sweet tea from Mickey D's for only a buck is one of those things (And a peach milkshake from Chick-fil-A ). We then traveled through Hayesville, North Carolina and on in to Murphy where we decided to stop for lunch. We ended up in a joint called Chevelles, and you guessed it, they had a lot of car-themed items on the menu. Mom had the El Camino which was a wrap with green stuff on the inside and I had the Studebaker which was a barbecued pork chop. The food was good but what stood out the most were the homemade yeast rolls. I think I had four of them. And what else was surprising was that we ate for less than twenty bucks. After lunch, Mom was ready to go home but I had a surprise for her. Harrah's Casino in Cherokee, North Carolina has opened a new casino in Murphy called Valley River and I've been a couple of times but she hasn't been there yet. I like to gamble but I don't like to lose so my limit was $20. I like to play video poker, specifically a game called Shamrock 7s. If you get three 7s then you get to pick a pot-o-gold and win a bonus. I really like this game and I have gambled in Vegas, Biloxi, Atlantic City and other smaller cities in between and it is only available in Cherokee and now Murphy. Or so I thought. Recently, when I was in Savannah, I went out on the Emerald Princess which is a gambling boat and they have the game out there too. Anyhow, Mom left me at one of those games and wandered off. It didn't take me long to lose my money so I went looking for her. I found her all the way on the other side of the casino in the food court having a snack and reading a book. She saw my look and before I could say anything she said: "I had five bucks to lose and on my first or second spin on one of those penny machines I won five bucks and cashed out. I doubled my money and it was time to go." I like the way she thinks. I needed a day like that to get out and have some fun. I came back reenergized and ready to write. In fact, I'm happy to say that I'm on track and have written 40,000 words in my various projects. My summer of one hundred days of writing continues and I hope the words keep flowing.