goodbye usa

After the slightly traumatic Colorado experience, Bill, Allison, the 'rents and I loaded back in the car and were Oklahoma bound. Not 48 hours after arriving, Mom and I rearranged the 'rola and her mass of crap, Mom squeezed into the passenger seat, Kitty took her post on top of all the luggage, and we headed to Nacogdoches, TX to drop the little fur ball off with Hayley. The six hours to Casa Hayley was a walk in the park. We woke up the next day and off we went, South Carolina bound. We arrived late that night, and since the power in my new home wasn't on yet, we opted to stay at the Holiday Inn (which ended up being a great success due to its proximity to the only restaurant in town that was still open, and just so happened to serve $1 PBRs). The next day, and for the following week or so, we hit every thrift store within a 50 mile radius, and had the house almost completely furnished come Ecuador time.

July 14th, Mom and I woke up, loaded the rental she had picked up in Birmingham on the drive out and headed to the Atlanta airport (after, of course, a stop at the Village Baker). A few hours later, she had left me in Atlanta and was on her way to Birmingham to drop off the rental car and fly back to Oklahoma.

I was on my own (until Miami, where I would be meeting up with the rest of the borderless engineers), ready to be in South America, and in need of some entertainment. Since I was mid-read on a book David had decided was "required reading" for starting grad school (about the only guy to win two Noble Prizes in the same field) and wasn't confident in its beach-read capabilities (or jungle-read for that matter), I opted to leave the brainy novel at home and purchase something new in the Atlanta airport. Mom had suggested The Help and I had heard good things, so I was on the prowl. After making it through security, I stopped at the first book stand and voila! The Help. Problem was... hardback. As if the two large bags and sleeping bag I already had weren't going to be embarrassing enough, I certainly didn't need to add the bulk or weight of a hardback. So the search for a paperback, more condensed novel commenced. I read the backs of several, and in my typical fashion, chose one about a girl from Africa: Little Bee.

I started reading immediately. My only other form of entertainment was my Discman (three bucks at the Goodwill, and now successfully been to Ecuador three times) and the six or so CDs I had in my tiny case. I wasn't about to whip those out and be sick of them by the time we got to the village. So I read. And read. And read. The flights were relatively uneventful. Atlanta to Miami, where I met up with the group, and Miami to Quito. The flight to Quito actually got rerouted to Guayaquil (about 30 minutes from Quito by air) due to "cold temperatures" (which if I remember correctly, were in the 50's). While the plane was resting its weary wings in Guayaquil, Afton came up to where I was sitting from her seat in the back to chat. I complained to her that the book I had just bought to last me the whole three and a half weeks was two thirds finished. She took the book, read the back cover, then looked at the front. "Muriel," she said. "That's really your own fault. Do you not see that it says 'Immensely readable' right here on the cover? What did you expect?" And that was that. I finished the book within the first week in Ecuador, and was left to my own devices, and my six CDs.