Day 6 - Saturday, March 27
My mother, whom I speak to everyday, told me that if i wrote the day on the title it would help me remember what day it is so there it is.
Today will be the first full leg that I am joined by a friend; John Mathis. He is training for The Leadville 100 in August after putting in a lottery ticket thinking there is no chance he will get in and guess what…His training plan calls for a long run of 1t miles this weekend so he decided to leave Jacksonville at 3 am and drive to where Alex and I are staying and then run 34 miles with me to Soperton.
Chapter 1: John arrives 5:45am, cup of coffee, catches me doing push ups before we depart. He has read the daily updates and thinks he knows what is in store. We hit the 2 lane highway in dense fog and no shoulder and for the first hour and half of the day we are jumping out of the road; Lucky (unleashed) and I knowing the routing and John frantically trying to get adjusted to the idea that we could actually get hit by speeding unwary trucks and cars. Good morning John!
Chapter 2: We travel through a town called Uvalda which looked like in its heyday was a bustling railroad town; now there is nothing left but empty storefronts, abandoned homes and an eerie movie set feeling. The highway finally ends after town 2 and we hit trail nirvana in addition to interesting cemeteries that mark history, families and the fact that we are in the deep, deep South.
Chapter 3: We enter a stretch that is remote and find a cemetery dedicated to the Sharpe family - commemorated confederate soldier.
Chapter 4: We are traveling down a remote stretch and see a massive compound with an entrance that has the word “Yeshua”. I recognized this as Hebrew and looked it up: Yeshua or Y'shua was a common alternative form of the name יְהוֹשֻׁעַ in later books of the Hebrew Bible and among Jews of the Second Temple period. The name corresponds to the Greek spelling Iesous, from which, through the Latin IESVS/Iesus, comes the English spelling JESUS. Shortly thereafter we came to a town named Higgston with one intersection. In that town center, there is a feature at the intersection - lights looking up at a massive confederate flag. Across from the flag is a cross and motto “Kneel at the cross stand for the flag”. And then on the other corner a sign “Honor the veterans protect their monuments”. Indeed we are in the deep, Deep South. On the next corner in a front row shack we waved at a man who introduced himself as Roger. He quickly donned a mask while his wife stood in the door with a cigarette. He had a cellphone in his pocket at full blast music blaring rap asking us where we are going in an overly energetic perhaps drug induced way. We shared our destination goal and asked about what brought him to this town. Leaving his family in Kentucky, he was looking for a way to get away from the law and this was the spot. John suddenly had a burst of energy after 20 miles of running and wanted to get out of there quickly.
Interlude: John has not run this far since his first Ultra - The Rocky Racoon 100 in February 2020. We both may be overly tired and delusional at this point and after much back and forth come to the conclusion that humanity is driven by 2 sides of a scale: one is power and the other is survival. While good and evil are typically thought of as those 2 sides, we think power and survival are the more “real” drivers.
Chapter 5: We are at mile 29 and pushing to meet Alex but the heat has gone up with the sun coming out. We find a general store and go in to see if they have drinks. They have a small cooler but the stores focus is boots, hats and denim. We speak with Jackie who is the granddaughter of the founder of the store who opened the general store in 1929 at the railroad station. When the station closed down, her father over the store to its present location in 1945 and now at 82, works every day at the store with his 2 daughters - Jackie one of them - helping run the store. As John and i finished our drink and left, we decided to turn back and buy something. John bought a hat for his son and ended up carrying the hat in a plastic bag for the rest of the run. Since i don’t need hats or boots, i bought a pair of overalls and i have no idea why. When she rang it up i read $457.20. John and i were weary, and i thought that is expensive for a pair of overalls. Thankfully the receipt i signed was for $45.72!
Chapter 6: We meet Alex with 4 miles left to Soperton and are celebrating our solid effort. As we leave for the final leg, Alex drives by us and we notice the awning is fully extended. We are screaming to him from the road at the top of our lungs!!!! He realizes this, pulls over and for the next hour I call every RV store within 100 miles to figure out how we can fix this, Alex is taking down the entire awning structure and John is bicycling back to the closest town to buy duck tape so we can tape all the components to the RV. There is the fleeing thought that the trip might be scuddled due to undrivable situation. But, team pulls it together, gets the RV in shape to drive without awning and determined, we finish the last 4 miles to Soperton where we dock at the local Dollar General with a more “streamlined” RV (less and awning structure).
Chapter 7: Sometimes we just need to celebrate crossing a finish line in whatever shape you are and today was certainly that. John and I ran 34 miles, Alex overcame a potentially terminal situation and we had great stories to tell. We celebrated at a great Italian restaurant in Vidalia named Rialto where John and I had 3 beers each, onion rings, meatballs, salads and pasta dishes. At 7pm, Alex and Lucky drove us back to Johns parked car where he was determined to drive back home as quickly as possible even after having woken at 2:30am. John is unflappable, calm in a storm, funny, philosophical, a Diesel engine and great friend; I thank you for the wonderful day we shared!
P.S. I asked a handful of people i met about the new Georgia voting law signed this week. Not one of them knew much about it.
All for now, cheers!
Lucky hitting the pond
Typical abandoned home
Confederate soldier grave
Yeshua camp entrance
Town center Higgston
Roger from Kentucky
Jackie granddaughter of 1929 stor founder
John carried this hat for 10 miles
no more awning
Johns new bff
Alex and Lucky driving with our new mascot Godzilla
