The familiar sound of song birds outside my window woke me not that I actually slept. I felt as if I slept with my eyes wide open, often tossing and turning as every thought. Rather than turn it off, I had left my hearing aid in my ear the night before in hopes of not missing the alarm. There was so much to do and little time to do it. After all, we wanted to be on the road on our two month journey across country by Wednesday, and hadn't even registered the truck or the trailer in North Carolina. Of course, it was like me to push things till last minute but, even this was a little bit much. It wouldn't matter though, because, our arrival at the tag office was marred by a missing title which in turn prohibited us from going further along in the registration process. The truck was easy to register, but the airstream needed a title from the dealership. We were three weeks removed from the closing date which meant the title should definitely have been at the tag office. With a huff, I walked out, prayerfully reminding myself that anger was unnecessary. With optimism that it would work out, I asked Karilyn what the timing looked like. She said the timing was unclear but what was clear is that without the documents, the trip was on ice. With a deep sense of regret I suggested we set off for some lunch so I could process the gravity of what we were dealing with.
At lunch, I contemplated the possibilities, while Karilyn diligently worked on the phone with the girl at the RV sales store to find out where the missing title was. In this time, I couldn't help but wonder if the whole trip was a dream that simply wasn't going to come true. Yesterday, I would have sounded like we were setting sail to discover some unknown lands far off in the distance and today, I couldn't help but think it simply was all a pipe dream. I looked over at Karilyn for good news and her face expressed frustration instead. After talking to the customer representative she said that the title had indeed made it to the office and should be there. My heart jumped at the news because I knew that it was likely that the title was simply under a pile of paperwork.
Two hours later, Karilyn came home from the office looking dejected but upon seeing my sigh and shoulders slump, she gave up the joke and held up the new tags. I let out the surfer version of woohoo(Yee-yee) and the stoke was beginning to swell again. This trip was happening and I was so excited that I announced we were leaving tonight. After all, I knew I wouldn't sleep, so I figured a sunset ride to Chattanooga would be proper. And with that, I found the motivation to make the final push on prep and get ready for the trip of a lifetime.
There was one more major concern that loomed in the distance, Barry. Barry was a tropical depression making his way inland, and was approximately over Missouri. Lines of storms from Barry stretched out thousands of miles from his now defunct eye making travel anywhere hazardous. There were no effects from Barry where we lived at that moment but I knew as we got closer to Chattanooga, we'd likely run head first into Barry. Upon looking at the radar, it was confirmed that our sunset ride might literally stop in Chattanooga with Barry settling in just to the west. I figured we could wait it out and then in the A.M. carry on with the journey. After enjoying a beautiful ride through the mountains passing the Ocoee river and winding our way down towards Chattanooga, we could see clearly the storm clouds from Barry. Barry looked like a tired old man in it's lack of appearance but the dark clouds begged the question, just how bad would it be. After filling up with gas, feeling the front winds from Barry, and checking the radar, I decided to run the risk of bad storms and headed into the darkness. Tired old man Barry definitely seemed fitting as it barely rained and the wind was mild at best. Once through, the skies were clear and we were on our way following the highway through Nashville and westward bound. As I got tired, it worked out perfectly that one of the largest state parks in Tennessee would be accessible to me in a few miles, and so, we found rest in Natchez State Park.
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