January 31
Jennifer was acting up. She was amenable to the 69 I had suggested, but she insisted that I turn the car around first. Ringo stayed quiet in the back, the light reddening his already normally crimson appearance. Jennifer then slipped to the floor, suddenly finding the cold glass a little too much for her perfect round bottom. Her contrariness was due to the fact that I had neglected her for some time.
No, this is not a script treatment for a porn movie. Perhaps some introductions are in order.
The “I” would be I, James C. Daniels. I retired from the Ohio Bureau of Worker's Compensation on Friday, January 28. At about 4:30 a.m. on Monday, January 31, Jennifer, Ringo and I began a trip to Florida. Jennifer is my British-accented GPS. Her round bottom didn't like the 15 degree temperatures outside the windshield, so her suction mechanism let go, dropping her off the window, nicking the steering wheel and into my lap. And I had set 69 miles per hour into the cruise control. Really, this is no porn film. I also had left her in “bike” mode, which means that she worked as hard as she could to keep me off the busiest routes, which includes Interstate 71, on which we were traveling. After a bathroom stop for me and a reprogramming session for her, all was right between us. Ringo is my red Trek 7.3 FX bicycle that I am taking to Florida with me. He rested securely to the bike rack that I strapped to the back of my Saturn Vue. Ringo never fell down because of the cold. I don't think I ever named the Vue. I'm open to suggestions.
Jennifer behaving in north Alabama.
We left early enough to miss the Cincinnati rush hour. Whoever designed the Interstate Highway System must have been in a wicked mood the day he or she decided to intersect two major highways smack dab downtown in the Queen City. Even getting there by 6:30 was no picnic, but much better than the city's standard workday rush hour. Soon enough we were across the river and barely noticed rush hour in Louisville, KY. Only an accident along I-65 in downtown Nashville TN slowed our fine drive. I stopped at the Alabama visitor’s center just over the state line and a kind gent from Wisconsin snapped my picture. Soon enough after that, I pulled into the Motel 6 just south of downtown Birmingham AL at 2 p.m.
A kind gentleman from Wisconsin snapped this for me.
Still too early to go to sleep for the night, I took my brother, Dave Daniels', advice and visited Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once worked from this house of worship. It is also the site where four young girls were killed in a bombing during the Civil Rights Movement. I had visited Dachau, the Nazi concentration camp near Munich, just a few weeks earlier. I try to take the opportunity to visit sites like these any chance I get. It was after three and I didn’t have time for a tour, so I bought a t-shirt at the gift shop and wandered around the block for a few minutes.
16th Street Baptist Church, Birmingham AL
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