Wednesday, April 23rd

Today we got started at mile marker 153, still on Highway 60 (Grand Ave.). We were in an industrial area, not a place you would want to walk at night. Before too long, we passed the 400 mile mark and celebrated with our traditional water/gatorade toast right at the topless nightclub. Further on we came to a Valero service station to relieve ourselves of some of our water. John went first and could not open the door. He told the girl behind the counter that he couldn't get the door open and she came around with a screwdriver and did something to the lock and the door opened. When it was my turn, the door wouldn't open again. Using my best Spanish, I told the girl I needed the keys, "Necesito los llaves". She said "What?". I said, in my best English, "I need the keys". Then I realized that the young girl was an East Indian and not Hispanic. Then, before I could get out of the store, I spied a "quarter machine".

I'm not sure what the official name is, but the idea is to drop a quarter in and it slides along and pushes previous dropped quarters to a ledge and any quarters that drop over the edge are yours. Well, I was just standing there looking at this machine, when a quarter dropped. I picked it up and inserted it into the machine and wonder of wonders, 4 quarters dropped down. This put me into a quandary, because I was spying an ice cream sandwich that cost 89 cents and I had enough money to pay for it with my gambling winnings, but I also wanted in play more quarters in the machine as there was a whole group of quarters just waiting to fall and I knew that if I would just play the 4 quarters, I would win a handful more.

But if I played the quarters and lost, I wouldn't have enough money for the ice cream sandwich. What to do? It turned out that I did play the 4 quarters and the group of quarters that were suppose to fall were still on the ledge waiting for some other lucky person to claim them. And me with neither quarters nor an Ice cream sandwich. Does anyone out there have the 1-800 number for Gamblers Annonymous?

On we went and finally came to McDowell St. We were headed due east, the direction to Georgia. We passed by the Fairgrounds and kept going until we reached Central Ave. We stopped at the CVS Pharmacy where Ruth and Carol picked us up. I found a socket, a small rubber ball and .42 cents. Stay tuned .....