Walkin’ in the Rain

Tennessee – Friday, May 17

We were out of the house early today, after taking some pictures, so that we could enjoy breakfast at the yummy Loveless Cafe before Jim headed to work. Their son Chris joined us too. They make huge scrumptious breakfasts, and diners can go see the biscuit lady at work. (And there’s homemade jam to go with the homemade biscuits!) This place is worth driving a little out of the way for a good meal, and I’m happy to have had the chance to eat there.

It was turning into a drizzly gray morning, but Linda and I decided to head back to Graceworks to get some photos since I totally forgot to when we were there on Wednesday. We also shopped in their thrift store for Abercrombie and Fitch clothes – after hearing the horrible remarks that the CEO of A&F made about marketing their clothes to only the “cool” people, and not making ladies’ sizes in L or XL because he thought those sizes were too big and unattractive for his brand, someone on Facebook had mentioned buying A&F clothes to give to homeless people and shelters so they can be “cool” too. So, with the help of one of the workers, who liked what we were doing, we found 4 pieces of A&F clothing, and I will find a good place to donate it. And I hope Abercrombie and Fitch rethinks their marketing strategy – not that I shop there anyway. Then we stopped by the Veteran’s Cemetery where Linda’s mom was laid to rest in January, and of course I had good memories of her from my childhood. We walked nearly a mile and a half around the cemetery, under a light drizzle, but we had umbrellas so we stayed dry. There were a lot of workers out getting everything spruced up for Memorial Day, and we asked one them how big the place was. He said there are about 11,000 people buried there, and they were getting ready to place flags on each and every marker. That would be a sight to see – I’m hoping to visit another veterans cemetery right around Memorial Day so I can see what it all looks like. Our walking there made up for the shortfall on Wednesday.

I was thinking I’d be heading out of Nashville today, and we headed back to Linda’s house where I got all packed up. Our plans were to go to Warner Parks to walk a 3 mile trail before I headed out of town. But my computer was still plugged in and doing some auto updates and stuff that neither of us recognized, and her son Christopher suggested I give it enough time to make sure everything is updated and re-loaded and working properly before I leave. He would be back again to check it later. So we took Tula out to walk the trail in the park, and we somehow managed to get a little lost, and our walk turned into 7 1/2 wet miles! And yes, we had a map – an embarrassing turn of events for 2 former Camp Fire Girls – ha! We had our umbrellas though, and Tula never minds getting wet, and it can be fun to walk in the rain when there’s no thunder and lightening. Combined with our earlier walk in the veteran’s cemetery, we walked nearly 9 miles today – all of it with umbrellas in drizzle and rain. Linda now holds the record for the most miles walked with me in the rain – a record that no one will be in any hurry to break, I’m sure! At this point I knew I wouldn’t be leaving Nashville today, so the Compson’s were stuck with me for another night!

I didn’t do a donation today since I did 2 of them yesterday.

By then it was late afternoon, and we headed back to the Yazoo Brewery to meet up with Jim and Chris and sample another beer, and then we went back to Linda’s house for dinner. We went and picked up her dad, who owned the Bay’s English Muffin bakery in Detroit back when they were in Michigan, and it was fun to hear a few stories about those times. Bay’s English Muffins are my favorite to this day! And my computer seems to be working like a charm – new hard drive, new software and he even got some dog hair out of it! Thanks again, Christopher!