Dreams & More Random Thoughts

I'm sitting in what I can not help but think of as a PC Bong; the woman behind the counter is even Korean, lol. So I never used Internet Cafes (as I believe we call them here) much until I went to Korea and in Korea they are PC Bongs. So I am in a PC Bong in TN. The problem I am running into is that when I am visiting friends and fam with a computer I do not particularly want to sit and blog; I want to visit. So then when I am on my own and want to blog I have no access to a computer. So I journal and life is good :)

I have had two weird dreams in the last week or so. They seem to come at proper times. In the first I was in my home in WI and I had a baby with me, I think one of my friends' children. There was a tornado and I took the baby into the basement and was shielding her. Nothing happened so we were called back upstairs and that was when the tornado hit. It shook the house and we could all hear things rattling and then the house started to spin (like Wizard of Oz) and then it just stopped. One wall was gone and it seemed the house had landed on a cliff and the open wall was over-looking a land of destruction with tornadoes whirling about off in the distance. People starting running out of the wall and falling off the cliff so I was screaming for them to stop and still holding the baby when someone bumped me out the side. I reached for a scrap of ... house? Of something and held on. The scrap started to tear but slowly and ended up letting me and the baby down to the ground with only a slight jarring. The baby's mother came and I remember feeling relieved; but then everyone was saying that the baby wasn't breathing. I was pissed, and grabbed the baby and delivered baby CPR and she came around and was fine.
The other one I had last night. Me and some people were diving. We were trying to find something for these other people. Jackson was in it and a long ago friend from college who I am not even in touch with anymore. Anyway, while we were diving Jackson got his foot cut off (sorry dude) and I had to bring him to the surface. He got out and I had to go back down and everyone was running out of air and it became apparent that our equipment had been tampered with. We all came back up and when we came up it was like these indoor docks and we walked from these straight into house. The people we were working for told us we were locked in the house and they split us all up. The house was haunted but we were all like "Scooby-Doo" and didn't believe it and were trying to find the tricks. It was so bizarre. In one room the covers moved and writhed as if someone was under them. And my friend grabbed them and said "there are wires in the blankets" and I (again) felt relieved only to find myself in horror as she started to rip the covers away from the bed and it became obvious something was pulling them from her. Then my friend disappeared and I woke up. Ok... any dream analysts out there?

Maine was very fine. And although I don't know every setting of King's books, I could envision many of them happening in the places I passed and even where I stayed. The Shining was especially vivid to me. Maybe due to the movie. Many places were boarded up for the winter and kind of abandoned looking. Whole cities along the coast sometimes felt long dead. I stayed the night at a lodge and visited a pub. I left a "Charlie's Bar" pen from Clayton in there :) Anyway, there were a couple of people in there and they left shortly after I arrived so I had a chance to visit with the bartender. She was closing up at 8:30 and said that was pretty common on the weekdays. She was very friendly and chatted about her life in Maine, her family and her wish to travel more (seems a recurring theme, once ppl hear I am just toodling around). Maine reminded me a lot of WI with its forests and small towns. But parts also reminded me of Korea, the kind of hilly/mountainous parts of Korea that are not populated. And of course I drove along the coast mostly, so that didn't really remind me of anything :) My ocean experience is so wrapped up in Chuuk and Pollap that I have a hard time believing any ocean in cold weather is really the ocean. I still loved it. I love water. All of it I have decided. Water and this trip would be a blog of itself.... so.
Again, I know I am not doing justice here, but I hope that by jotting some things down I can come back sometime and do a better job.
So, when I left Maine was when my scratch off ticket obsession started. I have been getting scratch offs for my friend Chris since I left. But leaving Maine was when I started going out of my way to get them because I went across and into Vermont just to get a scratch off. Lol. Also because I had time, but mostly to get a dang scratch off from Vermont. This trend has not ended. I have done this same thing for 3 other states- Rhode Island, West Virginia, and North Carolina... so I hope these states are big winners :) Its fun anyway.
After Maine, I stayed another night in Boston and then headed out in that northeastern storm ya'all maybe heard about. Did I mention Jackson is an awesome host? He is/was and we had such a lovely visit. Felt as if no time had passed at all. I love that phenomena. I barely stayed a night in Baltimore with another PC pal. I arrived quite late and she had to hit the road quite early and timing wasn't really great. But overall, I think we did quite well with the time afforded to us. I was late due to weather. Strange thing in the New England area... radio stations. There are so many and you can get stations from all these different cities. The traffic and weather reports made me crazy because I would be driving along, listening, and crying out "what city?? where is xxxfreeway backed up to xxxroad??? where is that freeway shut down??? where is the snow letting up??? Just PLEASE tell me from what city you are reporting!!!" Eventually the stations usually says, but never during an actual weather or traffic report.
After my second horrendous drive through bad weather, and after the effects of mostly feeling like all of the east coast is one big city, I was thrilled to see cows in Virginia. I took a couple days off the freeways in Virginia (with side trips to West Virginia and North Carolina for the almighty scratch offs) and made my way to Tennessee to visit another friend I met in Korea. That pretty much brings me up to date. There's more of course, but its getting late and while this has all the feel of a Korean PC Bong, the prices are much much different :)

One thing I have found quite interesting... every time I leave a place and hit the road again I feel so excited. I laugh at it every time. I love this feeling. Here in TN I met two women truck drivers. They were so fun to chat with. Very cool. I love all the different accents I hear everywhere too. Felt like the east coast accent so abruptly gave way to the southern one, it was kind of disconcerting.

I am on my way today towards Atlanta to visit my aunt. I can already feel the bubble of excitement the road brings. Oh, and the best thing? It is like, really warming up. Today is the first time on this trip that I have felt warm. It is in the high 40's here. When I left WI it was 30's, so as I have been travelling and hitting the weather and all that I keep telling myself "it's worse at home". The last couple of days may have been 30's here, but it was colder at home. Still, I am happier the higher above freezing it gets... so whoppeeee!
Love to All.