Day 13 - still at Searcy, AR - The Great Plains Trail - Sort Of

May 27, 2023

Day 13 - still at Searcy, AR

With the day off, 7:45am seemed like a reasonable get up time. Made coffee with the room's brewer, then ate one of the melted sweet and salty bars from my front bag so I could take my pills. I am still messing around trying to get my Gmail app to work. Removing all the updates in the app looks like it fixed it, but I may be celebrating too soon. Sending out tonight's email will be the test.

Laundry and filling a prescription are my primary jobs today . . . well, besides getting yesterday's report posted. There's wifi here at this motel so that made it easier, and I got that third task done first.

Next was laundry using the motel guest machines from 10:25am to 12:30pm, at a cost of $4 total. I'm now 16 quarters lighter.

Just after noon, my wife called so we could catch up on news. That was fun.

Google Maps said walking to the nearest Walmart would take 17 minutes. I left at 12:38 and it took me only 15 minutes. This away-from-home medication pickup was going to work, I was thinking, until the pharmacy technician noticed they only had 26 of the 120 pills needed to fill my prescription. He called the next nearest Walmart pharmacy. They had zero. There's a shortage of this medicine at the moment due to one of the manufacturers shutting down. I have three more weeks' worth of those pills with me, so I'll try again as I move along.

There's an IHOP just beyond the Walmart parking lot and I stopped for lunch there on my way 'home'. They were not very busy at the time, which had the group of waitresses fighting over who would get to serve me, though it was all in fun. The 'Split Decision Breakfast' along with Strawberry Iced Tea is what I decided to have. Remembering that I need a few pictures for today's report I turned around to take a picture of Walmart through the IHOP window. One of the waitresses saw me so I said I bet you think I'm absolutely nuts. She said no, the trees make it pretty and the window frames the view nicely. I explained to her why I was taking the picture - that my Walmart visit was my excitement for the day, and I needed pictures for my report. She lives in Bald Knob and suggested I could go there because they are having a music festival this weekend. She said Bald Knob considers itself 'The Strawberry Center of the World'. That I didn't know. What I did know was I wasn't going to bicycle back to Bald Knob. I found it interesting that she was originally from Michigan, as was the owner of Sam's Diner in Newport, where I ate lunch yesterday. The waitress said she thought Arkansas and Michigan were sister states, the connection being that fruit pickers would work each year, first in Arkansas and then in Michigan.

At 2:15pm, I was back at the motel. Worked some on today's report, then decided on a nap, starting at 3:00pm. I slept until 4:00pm, but was even more sleepy when I got up.

Spent some time catching up on replies to comments I received in the journal, then jumped over the ditch and walked across the parking lot to the nearby Dollar General store. I was really surprised I couldn't find any cans of Beanee Weenees. I guess I can get by without them.

I wasn't real hungry, but decided I better eat something for supper, so walked down Race Avenue to Subway. Had a pleasant conversation with the worker there who told me about her daughter, who's an outdoors type and has moved to Colorado. She's proud of her. The worker fixed up a Pickleball Club sandwich for me. Watching the few customers who came in for carryout and to eat-in was fun. Everyone seems to move at a calmer, slower pace here. It's nice.

Well I need to pack up my food items and my clean laundry and get set for tomorrow, but I think I'll go ahead and post today's report, as exciting as it is.

Jeff

Spent: $74.58 plus $5 (motel room) + $4 (laundry) + $16.92 plus $4 (lunch) + $21.37 (lunch bag items) + $12.05 plus $2.41 (supper) = $140.33

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