Let’s Roll

Elizabeth and I are leaving The Villages this morning right after I hit the post button. We’ve got four days of travel sandwiched around three nights on the road. I can’t say why we’re going, only that we are. What I can say is that we’re on a mission. If all goes as planned, you’ll find out later down the road—pun intended.

Our first night out will be spent in Adairsville, Georgia.  We’re visiting a couple of places before stopping for the night. Leg one is about 461 miles.

We’re stopping in Smiths Grove, Kentucky on day two before settling in Nashville, Tennessee. We’ll travel a total of 236 miles and make several stops.

If you’ve been keeping track of my life through my blogs, you know that my mom was born in Smiths Grove.  That was 106 years ago.  The house is still there.  BZ and I will be knocking on the door to see if anyone’s home.  If they answer, I’ll tell them how hoof and mouth disease caused my grandfather to move his wife and two young girls north to Detroit in 1924.

Ruth and I knocked about seven years ago, but no one answered.  I’ve got my fingers cross that someone will this time.  I wrote this about the house back then.

While Moms’ birthplace had been built in 1855 by her great- grandfather, Harrison Perry Barner, he built it for another family. It’s grand. It has five-inch solid poplar floors, twelve-inch baseboards, beautiful crown molding, several chandeliers with ceiling rosettes, nine foot – ten-inch ceilings on both floors, and seven fireplaces. All of the walls, both interior and exterior, are eighteen inches thick.  A well and outhouse were “out back” near the kitchen.  Its most fascinating perk was a small cave where the family stored milk, butter, eggs, and other perishables.

We’ll spend our final night in Talladega, Alabama.  At least that’s the plan. We’ll travel about 260 miles that day.  We’ll make a couple of stops before spending the night.  The only appointment we have is on that final morning.  Once that’s done, it’s about 500 miles back to The Villages.

If you google our route, you may figure out our mission, but you’ll have to be really smart to do so.  I’ve told a couple of close friends, but they’ve been sworn to secrecy.  If everything works out, you’ll all find out sooner or later.  I’ve got my fingers crossed for the third quarter of 2027.  We’ll see.

BZ took a road trip with Ruth over twenty-five years ago.  They took that trip before BZ moved to California.  They got up one morning and drove to Iowa to “see corn”.  Cross my heart, that’s why they went.  We may see some, but that’s not why we’re going.

We’re going to be together for a week, and one on one for at least ninety hours on the road trip.  That should be ample time for a good conversation. We’ll debrief between stops, develop an outline of our intended plan, and still have time to catch up on how life is going for each of us.  She’s always been a traveler, so the road trip is nothing new for either of us.  The big difference is the one-on-one time that we’ll share.

Like I said, it’s going to be epic.

TBC