In the meantime though, we all got up and dressed, but took no showers because the water was cold. So I got up my To Kill book and we drove on over in the jeep, to eat at the Oakwood Cafe, which was part of the Georgia Farmer's Market. The last night we had looked at it, and saw it was closed. But it was open for breakfast. So we drove to the place, and parked in the little parking lot facing the building, with it's windows and brick features. I looked behind me, and saw concrete roofs and platforms, with people on them and signs, and food, mostly veggies and fruits, in crates with yellow or green mesh making them not touch the wood surface. At the Georgia Farmer's market, Farmer's sell things to consumers and restaurant owners, coming in and out a lot. It goes 24 hours straight! But we would tour it later. Right now, we walked into a threshold by way of a modern glass door. Inside was a tall curved roof, with a big mural of Atlanta's skyline, a train depot, Fox Theater, the aquarium, the Turner Field, and some other places in our great city. Beneath it all were tables, which were brown and had some breakfast plates, silverware, and Ketchup and Mustard. To the very far end was a kitchen, and a long counter with booths on one side. A waiter led us to this, and we sat down.
The menu was already at the table. Dad told us that he had come here many times before when he worked at a paint store in the area, and all the times he did were only lunch and dinner though, no breakfast. I ordered a sausage, eggs and pancakes and Rebecca had pancakes. Dad had some breakfast stuff also. I watched a Brain Pop movie of the day, and talked and looked around at some truck drivers and farmers, some pretty sketchy people. Our waitress was nice. She had black hair and said that some people don't even know the cafe exists, and they have not been getting a lot of people in lately, and that the restaurant doesn't advertise, but they should. I had a great breakfast, smoking hot. It was good. After the meal, Rebecca, Mom and I went into the little courtyard with the garden, under an outside roof. Dad was paying. We tried to open the door to the gift shop, but couldn't open it. So we walked to the car, and watched some of the people loading goods onto the docks. Then Dad also exited through the side entrance, where the counter where you pay is right by, coming onto the little sidewalk of this open courtyard. We were by the car, talking a little, when we saw Dad nudge on the door and some old lady open it up. We guessed she might of heard him and let him in. So we went back there, as Dad turned around and opened the door for us.
It had post cards, and gifts, and other kind of things in there. There was a lady, with short grey hair, and she was at a counter that had a desk and office behind it. To the right of her was a door leading to a hallway. I later knew this lady to be Marsha Thomas. I said hello, as we approached the counter. Dad asked her if she could tell me all about the Market, where the stuff was and what they did. She got a map, and began pointing out places, saying the GA farmers were in the back, to the left and also showed me a place where a guy sold bags. She said there was a lot of mexican-americans that worked out there, and talked so much about how she grew up here from a farm and her Dad was an accountant, that she wanted to run away and be free of an office, but her Dad put her back and showed her how to do things. She said her brother was good at sitting in an office, but she tried to do errands and look around the market, and do things rather than just sign people in. She told me a lot about the history, that you can tour the bag place, and what a nice guy he is, and about the warehouses, that the GA farmers only come in the summer and sell oranges and peaches. She told me so many things, I can't name them all. She asked if I was doing it for a project, because she said a lot of kids do do it, especially homeschoolers. She even gave me her card, and that's when I discovered her name. On the way out, I told her mine and thanked her for all the info and the card. Mom and I were alone by now, because Marsha talked for such a long time that Dad and Rebecca went back. It was really interesting. Seriously.
We toured the place, seeing all the crates on a shelf going downward, and all the carts with the people bustling about. There were even shirts and kitchen appliances. A lot of moving.
Back at the Cummins, Mom and I made the dogs go to the restroom in a small grass area, in front of the R.V. to the right. There were some anthills there too. Then we all retreated inside as a white bearded man with white hair came up in a truck and helped Dad fix the R.V. Dad stayed out and told him the problem, and Roger installed the thermostat. We thought our troubles were over... or so we hoped. Dad paid him, and we all got ready to go. We put the slides in, and took in the electric cord. We drove on the highway all the way to Albany, GA, which was a little close to the line. In an R.V. park with a little lake off the road, with swans. To the right was a little office. We got out of the car, Dad and I, and walked to the door. Inside, was a counter to the right with offices behind, a couch with table and some coffee table stuff, and a rec room behind it, and some restrooms. At the counter was a young black haired girl with really short hair, kind of like a mullet. She checked us in and made us go through many passes, and asked many things about our motorhome. Her voice was hoarse; it sounded like she had a cough, but it was high too. When Dad said a funny phrase, she laughed and giggled. There were some books on the table, one a diary from an American who was at the Battle of Normandy, France, on D- Day. When I asked her if I could take it and replace it with another one, she declared that she didn't have a big library, and that at the R.V. park they let you read it but you have to take it back later, before you left.
WHAT! Well, I totally couldn't read it in a day, the time we were staying. Just that night and the next morning. So I dropped it. It was sad, though. We parked the R.V. in a spot right by the pond, with trees over it., and a grass area by it. We put out the slides, and Mom, Dad and I went outside on the left to do all the stuff. From a bay door we got the water hose, and tried to fasten it on a faucet connected to a wooden thing connected to the ground, with a pump. We couldn't get it on easily. Tried it left and right. We connected the other end to the little hole in the bay, with all the buttons for doing the water and sewer. With a monkey wrench we finally secured it, and then we turned off the water pump inside and turned a switch to city water. We also got out the black tube, the sewer one, from it's compartment in the bay, and connected it to a hole and one in the ground. Dad told me to press my foot on that. He pulled two things forward, saying that there would be a lot of pressure because we hadn't done the sewer in two days. I felt from my foot a gush of liquid as it went down from the stands, the stairs, black stands, underneath the tube to make it go downhill. As Dad always told me, poop doesn't run uphill. No it doesn't.
Then something happened. I lost my balance from all the liquid coming at one time, that I fell back onto a tree. The tube that went down filled up with poopy water and gushed out down the hill. It was yellow and black combined, and it made an odor that was like no other, and it smelled as bad as rotten eggs mixed with dirty socks, plus alligator guts spewed over raw fish with coffee and dog legs and a gnat's eye. And THAT, smells bad. It went down the small dirt mound, and I reached forward to make sure it didn't do anymore. Mom told me to stay back, if I touched it I could get a disease. So I did. We let it run it's course. I felt so bad I had let it happen, and knew I would be scolded and yelled at. None of the sort, actually, Dad just said he knew everyone made mistakes and it was alright, as long as I didn't do it again. And I will make a point not to. We also had a long way to get the electric cord out, and the black one wasn't long enough to get to the silver outlet with the switch turning it on to 50 Amp. We had to get an extension, a yellow one in the bays. It took us a while to find it in all of the messy arrangement. We finally pushed down and connected the two. The black one comes from a compartment in the R.V., with a small door at the back where you unlock it with a key. Then you press on an orange button that makes it come out, pushing it up. To put it back in you press down.
I'm sorry I'm just telling you all this now. I didn't give you the process in such detail before. I never thought about it really. But now we looked for a white cable cord, for thew cable. The trees blocked our satellite. But we couldn't find that either! We looked in like three bays and made some stuff come out, and on the right side of the bays Dad finally found a black cable one, and put it on the outlet and the bay connection. But inside, we were shocked to discover that the satellite worked! So all that effort was for nothing! We were really rusty after one month of not setting up. That was our first time after a month or more that we did that. Wait... actually we hadn't done it for 46 days, because of the 4 days in November and the month of December and the ten days in January. So, for 46 days we hadn't set up. So you can imagine we were pretty rusty.
We walked the dogs around the R.V. park, with all it's trees and little gravel roads. It was pretty quiet, not many people about. It had a fenced property at one end of it. We ran and made the dogs poop as we talked of some stuff also. Then we put the dogs inside and drove around to find a restaurant, and found a Chili's. I was afraid it might be too spicy, 'cause I don't like too spicy. I had potato soup though and a salad, which was pretty good though. We saw an african american toddler with his hat over his head, and you couldn't see his face it was so big. Dad also looked up on his iPad some cool place called Radium Springs, in Albany. We decided to go see it the next day before we left in the R.V.We had a nice waitress. Well, we toured around Albany in the dark, but I'll give you a grander description when we saw it the next day, in the light, as I did with the GA Farmer's market. I'm a day sort of person. Well, the only pretty thing on the night was Ray Charles having a garden and plaza on his piano, a statue.
I slept on the couch, the bed inside. It wasn't a REALLY exciting day, but it was okay. I was just glad I was on the trip again, even though I still missed my friends.
Farmers to restaurants, restaurants to patrons, patrons to stomachs, but some to left overs. Left overs to take home box, take home box to fridge, and fridge to hungry midnight snacker. The GA Farmer's Market is very important.-
Andrew.
No comments:
Post a Comment