Racing Homeward

July 18th

I'd woken early and left Tammy and David's place in Fort Meyers by 6:15 am, to hit the road back to home. I'd make the 22 hour trip in two days, stopping at Fontainbleau State Park in Louisiana - a good halfway point convenient to the highway. I'd stopped here in past trips to Florida. 

On the road about six hours, a message came through from Seth at Oleander Acres RV Park in Mission, Texas....about four miles from my house. His wife had spotted a Mexican Violetear on their property. I  was just outside of Tallahassee. Entirely impossible to get there today, I'd have to pull an all-nighter and get there at sunrise, in hopes that the bird would stick around a second day. I did the math, and figured I  had sixteen more hours of driving, and there were nineteen hours until sunrise. I'd drive as far as I could, and sleep at a rest stop along the way for a few hours, planning my arrival for sunrise. Ooof. 

I chatted with my friend Mary for about two hours; caught up with a few other friends, listened to several hours of country music, a handful of hours of audiobooks, and spent several hours simply deep in thought, pondering some self-growth thoughts that had been on my mind of recent. Almost before I knew it, I was home. 3:38 am. I walked into my house, pet my dog, and crashed on my bed, without so much as brushing my teeth. My alarm was set for 6:30. 

Waking just a few hours later, I felt much more tired than I did when I went to bed. My friend Michael was driving down from College Station to try for the bird, and I met him there at sunrise.

 We waited several hours. No bird. I was awful company, too tired to so much as speak. He left to go do some work; I left to go take a nap. Others had arrived around mid-morning and we were all in communication and essentially taking shifts. That shift had no luck and left. Michael went back. No luck. I arrived again as he was leaving...two more hours...no bird. The bird was never seen after the first day. 

While it was a bummer to miss, I'd been headed this exact direction anyway, and doing so put me home to my bed, and to my sweet, sweet pup, whom I've missed a lot throughout this year. At least I hadn't wasted any precious resources on this bird, aside from a solid night's sleep. Unenthused. 

Year List: Still 657