Day 109 - On To Montgomery

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Last night was a good one, and I musta slept 8-9 hours. It never got cold, just a nice cool for sleeping. I was up at 6, packed and ready to hit the road around 645. It's overcast today, and that's probably the reason it is so warm. I would like to make Montgomery today, but not sure if I can.....depends on the road and the weather. My first goal is to get breakfast, and I've been told there is a restaurant in the next several miles......so I started out.

Traffic is not too bad, and I'm able to make good time. Along the way I passed a sign indicating the place where the Freedom Marchers stopped to camp on night 2. Hwy 80 from Selma to Montgomery is very famous because of the marches. I also passed the Lowdnes Interpretive Center along the way. The 5-7 mile walk to get breakfast is now at about 10 miles, but I finally get to Pat's Kitchen around 10am. I must say Pat is not a very talkative person, at least to strangers. I finally convinced her to allow me to charge my computer while I had breakfast. I gave her a card about the walk, she glanced at it, and went on about her business. I did notice she was friendly to some locals eating there, so maybe my approach was the wrong one.

I ate slowly to give the computer more time to charge, but finally unplugged it and asked Pat if I could sit at a table for a while and use the computer. "We start lunch at 11", was her reply, which I interpreted as I needed to be gone by then......or order lunch. Pat was a woman of few words! Well, I used the whole time, even went over a few minutes, but my table wasn't needed yet. I thanked Pat, and went on my way. Asked a local how far to Montgomery, and was told 20 miles.......most likely to far for today. Hwy 80 passed by a town named Lowndesboro, and another named Burkville. I stopped at a convenience store in Burkville, and bought a sandwich for later. The guy running the store said about the sandwich (bar-b-que), "it should be good if she fixed it the way I told her to." What if she didn't? Guess I eat it either way.

Sometime, in these small, country stores, the stuff you buy is older than it should be for good eating. I should check the dates, but rarely do. I've thrown away several things because they were too old. I headed out, with my sandwich, and soon a truck pulled ahead of me and stopped. A woman got out, and introduced herself as Queen Tate. Queen is the type of person that makes the walk what it is. To be honest with you, I hear at about the same speed I talk, and Queen exceeded that by many mph. She mentioned the name Jackson (I thought she meant Michael), but she was talking about Andrew. She mentioned Malcolm Little, and later told me that was Malcolm X's real name. And she mentioned the movie "Roots", and told me she had researched her family back to the same family in that movie.

Queen also told me she was the only black woman in Selma to vote for a Republican (I forget who it was), and the guy came to visit her after that. She also does some videos about stuff in and around Selma, and did a short video of me talking about my walk. You might catch it on youtube, under the name "queentate102". If anybody finds it, pls post a comment telling how. We talked a little longer, and headed on. I'm sure if i could talk to her at length, it would be very interesting. In a short period of time, she had more to say than I could absorb.

I passed a dead owl along the way......the 2nd one I have seen recently. They are such beautiful birds, it's a shame they get too close to the road. Before long I crossed Pintlala Creek, and entered Montgomery County. It started raining not long after that, and it was time for a rest stop, so I stopped under the overhang on a porch of a church. The rain had been behind me, caught up, and I could see clear sky behind it. After about 30 minutes or so, the rain had passed, hopefully it was moving faster than me and would stay ahead. The traffic on Hwy 80 was getting heavier as I neared Montgomery, and not pleasant walking at all.

Jerome called to check on me, and suggested several places I could possibly camp for the night. Most were near the airport on the west side of Montgomery. He also suggested I could charge my phone and computer at the airport terminal. I soon reached that area, and found a couple of good sites. But, the computer and cell phone did need charging, so I walked to the terminal, found a nice, quiet place to sit and plug everything in, and worked on the blog and did some email.....and ate the bar-b-que. It was good so she must have followed instructions! The camping spots are just across the street, so even if it gets dark while I'm in the airport, it won't be a problem to get to the site and set up the tent. One has to be creative when on the road!

About the pictures:
That's Queen Tate from Selma;
One of the signs for the campsites during the Freedom March.....I think there were 3 sites.

Another Christmas song for you....by 2 of my favorite performers.