Highway 5

Day 6: As we were leaving the guy’s apartment the previous night, David suggested that we go tubing down the Savannah River today. We were all for it, but then the plans changed and Josh decided that we should go swimming in the Savannah River at night. Yeah, that sounds like a wonderful idea, “Girl goes on trip to Augusta and gets eaten alive by an alligator.” I’m usually not a chicken when it comes to doing daring things, but I don’t like unknown water, especially at night. So, I wasn’t exactly thrilled about a river with the alligators, but I agreed to go. Since we didn’t have plans til that night, Kiersten and I made a Spaghetti dinner for the Scarborough’s. We made it early in the day and threw it in the crock pot. Anne took us to see the Widow’s Home, the place were Dr. Grants future clinic is going to be. We were just driving along and Anne was pointing out random houses and telling us facts about them. Then, we drove up to this big beautiful old brick mansion. I was like “Wow, what is that?’ She was like “the Widows Home.” It was love at first site. Ha! It was an old building that was used by the Civil War Widows. It was gorgeous. After we left I told Anne that I was sold on moving to Augusta when I graduate. So, we returned home and had family dinner. I have to say somewhere along this trip I started liking wine and babies. I always make fun of my roommates when they drink wine, but now for some reason, I don’t hate it. It must be the small bit of catholic in me. As for loving babies, that’s a miracle out of scripture. So Anne, Kiersten, and I laughed and talked about how this trip has just changed us so much. After dinner Josh came to the house so we could follow him to his friend Shane’s house. He was the one that has a house on the Savannah River. So we followed Josh to the house and the whole way Kiersten and I are telling ourselves that we can’t believe that we are about to swim in a river at night. Actually, that was more like Kiersten saying that because I said there is no way that I’m going to get in a river. I’ve taken one too many science classes to want to do that. We got to the house and Nathan and David were already there. Everyone gathered their swim stuff and we made our way down to the river. I’m thinking in my head this is cool, yet so unbelievably gross. We get to the dock and the fearless ones: Josh, Kiersten, and Nathan all jump holding hands into the river. Yeah, it was nice knowing them…ok actually they survived. So, that left David and me standing on the dock. I told David that I was not about to get in that water. David wasn’t in the water yet because he had a freak treadmill accident and injured his pinky toe. He was waiting for the Hydrogen Peroxide to soak in the wound before making the plunge. When his toe was finally all doctored up he said, “Come on Katie, let’s go.” I just look at him like he was crazy and the next thing I knew, he had the death grip on my hand and I’m screaming bloody murder as I hit the water. I felt like that feeling you had as a little kid when you are not wearing your water wings for the first time and all you want to do in hold on to your dad for dear life. Oh, the only problem here was that I’m a 22 year old woman with no one to latch onto but David who I had met 2 days earlier. Just the whole idea of being in that water freaked me out. I told David that I needed to get out. We swam over to the dock and we tried to pull ourselves up. I’m such a weakling with rolled up newspapers as arms and I couldn’t get out of the water. David managed to make it on the dock and he lifted me out of the water. So, we left the others floating in the river. David asked me if I wanted to get in the water again. Without hesitation, I said “No.” So he said, “Grab your towel and let’s sit and talk.” So, we talked about life and all its wonders as we looked up at God’s beautiful universe. After talking for awhile we both realized that we were getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, so we migrated inside. Not too long after that, the brave ones joined us in the house. After everyone changed out of their nasty smelling river clothes we decided to watch a movie. Of course, there were 5 of us and one too many movies to count, so picking out a movie was going to be a chore. After we stared at the movies for a minute we told David to just pick one. He chose, Once, which was wonderful because I love the music to it, but I had never watched the movie. So we watched Once, and the music was amazing of course. Kiersten got up to go to the bathroom and spotted a pack of raccoons. I don’t know if the proper term is pack, but I’m just going to go with it, outside eating the cat food. We all got up to see them and they ran off. After the excitement of the raccoons was over, we sat back down and finished the movie. Once the movie was over, it was time for us to head home. We said our good-byes, it was weird that we had only known Josh, David, and Nathan for the couple of days that we were there, but it felt like we had known them forever. They told us that they’ll come to Memphis in the fall. I’ll believe it when I see it. On our drive home there was an unusual air of silence that surrounded both of us. I suppose we were trying to replay the events of this vacation. The fact was that we weren’t even suppose to stay in Augusta passed Sunday because we were going to the beach. That this whole trip was a perfect example of how we aren’t in control of our lives. We had our whole trip planned with how many days we were to stay in every place to the places along the way to stop. Then all those plans went out the window all because of a missing wallet at the Texaco in Douglasville Georgia. I know that I’m probably about to be really cheesy with these last sentences so brace yourself. No matter how much you try to plan your life, it never ends up the way that you pictured it, but even better. So, yes I have to say that this trip to Augusta, Ga, of all places, has changed my life in some way. From the various roads that I’ve traveled so far in my life, I’ve decided that it takes leaving the place where you feel security to grow. Being uprooted and placed into foreign ground forces you to step out of the environment that you have grown accustomed to and rely solely on God. I feel that God likes to take us on little adventures sometimes, like this one, to draw us closer to him. The funny thing about this whole trip was that God could have made it easy for us and shown us the wallet. Instead He had bigger plans for us then we had for ourselves, so He let us sweat it out on side of Highway 5 in the middle of Douglasville Georgia it search for that stupid wallet.

day4/5

Day 4: It was Sunday, so we got up and had our coffee then got ready for church. Anne, Grant, and the kids left earlier to go to Sunday School and we drove separately. We were running a little late and had no idea how to get to the church. Luckily, we had TomTom. I tried to type in First Presbyterian Church and nothing remotely close came up. TomTom did however locate a Jewish Synagogue, some Muslim place, and an Islamic temple, so I came to the conclusion that TomTom is not a reformed GPS. Kiersten called David, who told us the directions off hand. Once we got to church, the service had already started. So we had to stand in the back of the church til the ushers could find us a seat. This of course was located in the front row. I’ve never in my life sat in the front row. My last name starts with a W so I was always placed in the back. But, I guess you have to grow up some time. The service was wonderful and after it was over we found David and went to lunch we him and his friend Nathan. We ended up going to a pizza joint that’s actually called the Pizza Joint. The food was good as was the conversion. We went home and took naps and yeah that was about it. I feel that if I had to decide what we were like on this trip it would be babies. I know you’re probably wondering how were you like babies? Well, we didn’t really do much but eat, sleep, and cry. Ok, maybe not the crying part. Let’s replace that with laughing. But, I’m not complaining. I loved every minute of this trip and it was very relaxing. Later that day, Josh wanted us to go swimming in the river, but we didn’t respond in time so we told him that we should do that again another night.

Day 5: Kiersten and I went and explored downtown Augusta in search for a new journal. We didn’t have any luck, but we did stumble upon a used bookstore that has exciting. It made us think of our dear friend Amanda because it had her name written all over it. We got back and Anne asked me if I wanted to shadow Grant around his clinic (he’s a doctor) in the afternoon. I was like “ummm YES!” I felt like a little school girl getting ready to go on her first date. I dressed up in Grant’s old scrub pants and a white shirt and headed to the clinic. When I got there, only a couple of people were waiting in the waiting room. I had to sit and wait a few minutes before they were ready for me in the back. Finally, one of the nurses came and got me. I followed Grant around to see the various patients’ rooms. I listened and I felt somewhat with it because I understood the terms that Dr. Grant used, such as diseases and medications that the patients were taking. After he was done with his patient’s assessment, I got to listen to their heart and lungs. Shadowing Dr. Grant took me back to my days at the Med. The Med was where I had my first semester of Clinicals. I just remember that the first patient I saw was a young woman who had full blown AIDS and my job as a nursing student was to bathe her. It was so humbling to bathe a woman that was not that much older than me. It just broke my heart and that’s when I knew without a doubt in my mind that nursing was my calling was. I loved every minute of following Grant, just seeing how broken people are physically and spiritually. It just made me want to be done with school even more. After Dr. Grant saw his last patient I headed back to the house. When I got home I filled Anne in with my stories from the clinic. She told me that they’ll need nurses once they get the Widow’s Home or the new clinic, open. I told her that I would seriously love to work there! After dinner Kiersten noticed that she had a missed a call from David. She called him back and invited him over to hang out. So David, Kiersten, and I talked about who knows what for about an hour. Since David’s jeep’s engine exploded on the interstate the other day, he now didn’t have a car. So, that meant that we had to drive him back to his place. He lives in downtown Augusta in this apartment/townhouse thing. It was so pretty! I guess I shouldn’t use that word to describe a guy’s apartment, but it was in this old building and the inside had a lot of character. I just love places with character. So, we sat and talked til the clock on the wall chimed 11 and then we headed back home again.

day 2/3

Day 2:

We woke up early and enjoyed a nice cup of Joe before with headed off to run the trails of the Savannah River, I know doesn’t that sound so hardcore? Anne told us about this place called ,Water Works, it was only about 10 minutes from the house. It was a dam that was on the Savannah River that had trails on the river bank. So, we found our way to Water Works and were blown away at how beautiful it was. We walked down to the dam and that’s when Kiersten and I were like...ummm can we just forget Memphis and move to Augusta??? So, we started walking the trail and then ran. We ended up running 2 miles and walked 2. I feel that we could have run more if it were evening. For some reason our muscles just don’t like moving fast in the morning. I guess I don’t blame them. After we got back from our run, I hung out with Anne and baby Mary Piper, as Kiersten caught lunch with a friend. Nothing else really exciting happened on day two so let’s move on to day 3.

We hung out all day, which was nice because our summers have been so fast paced that it was kinda good to just sit and do nothing. Oh, but then Kiersten got a phone call from a random number!! Who could it be?? None other than the Villa Rica Police Station! We had no idea how in the world they got Kiersten’s phone number, but they called to inform her that the prodical wallet had returned! Kiersten was in shock, she couldn’t believe that her wallet was found. This whole time was had thought that some hitchhiker had run away with Kiersten’s idenity. Never in a million years did we think that someone would turn it in. We were so thankful that the wallet was found, but we still had a problem. We were 3 hours away from it! So this was the moment of truth, where were we going to go for the remainder of the trip? We found out that Stuart, Florida was about 9 hours from Augusta and that means that Kiersten would have to drive that far without her license. So, we decided to stay in Augusta a couple of extra days, then go and get the wallet, and hit the Scarborough Farm on our way back.

That night Anne and Grant had people over and we played speed uno. This is a very fun game, however; it’s not fun the first time you play, especially if you are competitive like me. I ended up losing by 700 points. Yeah, I know that is crazy, but it was a good time.

Day 4: It was Sunday, so we got up and had our coffee then got ready for church. Anne, Grant, and the kids left earlier to go to Sunday School and we drove separately. We were running a little late and had no idea how to get to the church. Luckily, we had TomTom. I tried to type in First Presbyterian Church and nothing remotely close came up. TomTom did however locate a Jewish Synagogue, some Muslim place, and an Islamic temple, so I came to the conclusion that TomTom is not a reformed GPS. Kiersten called David, who told us the directions off hand. Once we got to church, the service had already started. So we had to stand in the back of the church til the ushers could find us a seat. This of course was located in the front row. I’ve never in my life sat in the front row. My last name starts with a W so I was always placed in the back. But, I guess you have to grow up some time. The service was wonderful and after it was over we found David and went to lunch we him and his friend Nathan. We ended up going to a pizza joint that’s actually called the Pizza Joint. The food was good as was the conversion. We went home and took naps and yeah that was about it. I feel that if I had to decide what we were like on this trip it would be babies. I know you’re probably wondering how were you like babies? Well, we didn’t really do much but eat, sleep, and cry. Ok, maybe not the crying part. Let’s replace that with laughing. But, I’m not complaining. I loved every minute of this trip and it was very relaxing. Later that day, Josh wanted us to go swimming in the river, but we didn’t respond in time so we told him that we should do that again another night.

sweet sweet georgia

So I was inspired to start a blog after my mini vacation to Georgia...yeah, we'll see how long this lasts.

Day 1: I feel that just this past week my life has changed. It all started when I went on a beach trip with Kiersten. Ya know, just a fun “let’s get away from Memphis and get really tan before school hits us again.” So on our route to Stuart, FL, we were going to stop in Augusta for a couple of nights. We had a fake list of things that we were going to do on this vacation, just little adventures to make the days go by. Adventures like swimming with dolphins and yeah, that’s about as far as we got. We were off from Memphis, just driving along. It was going great until we realized that we didn’t have an Ipod adapter that worked in Kiersten’s car. So that meant 8 hours of listening to the few cds that Kiersten had stashed in her 6 holder cd player. (One being Michael Jackson’s Greatest Hits.) Basically, we were in for a long drive. I think it’s funny how these days we can’t drive across the country or yet even cross the street without music. I wonder what it was like for Sacagawea as she had to follow Louis and Clark around with no music. I know that sounds like a silly thing to say, but I’m just saying could you do it? No music, just the songs that come from your mouth. So anyway, back to the trip. No Ipod was strike one. So we listened to the cds, talking about life, love, and everything in between. Then it was the thing that changed our lives forever or maybe just for a short time period. It was at the Texaco off of Highway 5, just outside Atlanta. Kiersten was filling up her new Honda with gas, as I wandered around the sketchy gas station in search of a bathroom. I always have to pee on road trips and I hate with a passion going in gas station restrooms. Someone in the government needs to do something about the sanitation of those things. I came back out and we were on the road again. Talking about how wonderful our lunch at the Swan Coach House was going to be, and then Kiersten slammed on the brakes. Neither of us a realized that we were driving on the interstate and slamming on your brakes isn’t something that should be done there. Especially with Atlanta drivers driving the way they do. Kiersten let out some choice words and we both realized that her wallet was left on the car. Kiersten snapped back to reality and noticed that she was going 20 mph down I-20. I was trying to calm Kiersten down and tell her to get off at the next exit and turn around. So we merged over to the far right lane and turned around. The stress in our car was growing; Kiersten’s whole life was in that wallet. Saying that makes me think of It’s a Wonderful Life when the angel is talking to Jimmy Stewart about money. The angel says, “Who needs money?” Jimmy Stewart responds. “Well it comes in pretty handy down here!” What were we going to do? We were in Douglasville, GA, a place I had never been introduced to until that day, and our appointment at the Swan House was fast approaching. So, we made it back to the Texaco. I ran inside and asked the Indian man working the counter if a wallet had be turned in. He gave me a puzzled look and it took me about 2 minutes more than it should have to explain the situation. He finally informed me that no wallet had been turned in. I walked outside and see Kiersten pacing the parking lot with a look of disbelief in her eyes. She was holding herself together pretty well; I was bracing myself for her to cry. I usual get really awkward around people crying, probably because I could never really relate to that emotion. That, I guess was because I grew up with brothers and crying was a form of weakness. However, I will say that nursing school has brought to my attention that emotion, but that’s a different story for a different day. I told Kiersten that the wallet hadn’t been turned in and she said that she wasn’t having any luck in the parking lot. So, we decided to retrace our drive from the gas station to the interstate. Now, let me preface the situation. We had planned to have lunch at the Swan Coach House, were we would be dinning with Buckhead’s finest. So, that meant we had to at least dress in somewhat nice attire. Kiersten was wearing a short blue skirt and a colorful top and I was dressed like a girl right out for a Jcrew catalog. With that said, we began our trek along Highway 5 and the local folk obviously were not use to young woman walking down the Highway because we were honked at I don’t even know how many times. I just love it how when you really want someone to notice you, they never do, but when you want to just blend in with the surroundings you stick out like a sore thumb. I’ll just say, neither of us was in the mood to be honked at by sketchy old men. We were hot and sweaty and Kiersten had just lost her identity to the world. Sweat was dripping down our faces but we continued marching down the road. It wasn’t looking very promising. We had been walking for about 20 minutes with no siting of the missing wallet. We walked back to the gas station and Kiersten went inside to get the number to the police station to inform them about the missing wallet. Just in case it decided to return. By the time that the policeman finally showed up our reservations at the Swan House had expired. Our perfect trip was quickly changing and we had no control of it. Kiersten spent the next 30 minutes filling out a stolen item report and contacting various people to have her credit card and such cancelled. After we got the police paper work squared away we were on the road again. With all the stress of the missing wallet, neither of us had an appetite, which was a first because usually we have to eat every hour to satisfy our stomachs. Kiersten was driving and called her bank back in Memphis to see if there was anyway to have money wired down to Anne’s account in Augusta. Thank goodness for modern day technology because I was able to use my little TomTom GPS to navigate banks in Augusta. However, the bank couldn’t wire the money to this bank called SunTrust and Anne wasn’t answering her phone and we needed her permission to put some money in her account. So, I suggested putting the money in my Regions account. This was the part of the trip that changed Kiersten and my relationship forever. We were now about to share a bank account! This whole trip was just like a movie you would see on the big screen. I can just see it now, “Two young college girls off on their last adventure before classes begin again, but little did they know that the road that waits ahead of them was full of adventures beyond their imagination.” I’m pretty sure that this was the first time in my life that I was truly thankful for technology. I always use to tell my dad that I was born in the wrong decade. That must be the farm girl in me, wanting to go back to the good old days. When people worked hard and enjoyed each others company. Where Friendships were based on speaking to each other face to face or writing letters from your heart, not from random text messages or a wall post. Oh, how technology has changed us! Anyway, back to our great adventure. After dealing with the hassle of bank accounts and identification and gas cards we decided that we were both starving. So my new best friend TomTom told us where the nearest Chick-Fil-A and we enjoyed a nice late lunch. We were now about 2 hours away from Augusta. Our plan was to stay in Augusta 3 nights and hit the road again for Stuart, FL. But since Kiersten didn’t have a license to drive, literally, we were in quite the predicament. Do we continue on the trip and just pray that we don’t get pulled over? Stay in Augusta or just go home? Oh the million questions that raced through our heads, those were the few that we caught! We decided that we would get to the Scarborough’s and see what happened. We finally made it to Augusta with no other problems arising. Once we got the Scarborough’s, the first thing that we did was find our beds, the trip had exhausted us and all we wanted to do was take a nap. After we rested our eyes for a little while, we got up and contemplated on what to do next. No one was home yet. Anne had to take the girls to violin and Grant was still at work. I felt a little awkward, I’m not going to lie, being in someone’s house without ever meeting them. We finally worked up the nerve to venture outside our room and see if anyone was home yet. We walked around the house and there was no one to be found. Kiersten had slipped into the bathroom and I was in the bedroom as someone walked in the door. I was thinking, oh great ,these people are going to think that some rando is in there house, so I waited til Kiersten was out of the bathroom to see who this surprise guest was….it was Josh, the Scarborough’s friend. He decided to help Anne out by getting the burgers ready for the feast that night. So we sat and talked and filled him in with our mini adventures we encountered that day. After about 30 minutes of talking, Anne and the kids arrived at home. We hastily got the supper ready as the guests started filing through the door. Dinning was wonderful! We had burgers and chocolate chip pie…so good! After the guests had left and the kids were in bed it was just Anne, Grant, Kiersten, Josh, and I left. The girls sat and enjoyed a glass of wine, while the guys had PBR. The rest of the night consisted of talking about the wonders of life and youtubing Bo Qui Qui videos, don’t get crazy. We still had no clue on what to do about the rest of our trip. Anne suggested that we could stay at the Scarborough’s Farm that’s in Pine Mountain, GA or we could even stay a few extra nights at their home in Augusta. We decided to sleep on it and we would think about it the next day.