I took a road trip yesterday, as the first step towards my life as a nomad, which I envisioned myself to be as I was growing up in India and Pakistan.
I love to travel, to see new places and meet new faces. I have often thought about doing a photography exhibit, or publish a book called, "The Places I've Been, The Faces I've Seen" but didn't have enough material. Now I am collecting them. :-)
I headed north from where I live with the intention of letting the intuition guide, and boy! did it ever guide me. I had a blast. there was not a dull moment in the four and a half hour of roaming the Earth, or at least a tiny portion of it.
As I drove into Huntsville I saw the gigantic statue of Sam Houston along I-45 and thought about checking it out up close, but then kept going. Little bit further down the road, or I should say up the road, I saw a sign informing me that there is a
DQ up ahead. (for those of you who are not from the South,
DQ stands for Dairy Queen, an ice cream and burgers restaurant chain) I love their Tropical Blizzard. It is a frozen concoction made of soft serve ice cream blended with bananas, coconut and walnuts.
mmmmm. So I get to the
DQ, after detouring through the construction going along the I-45. It seems I-45 is always under construction somewhere.
I ordered my Blizzard and as I was waiting for it, I noticed a copy of "Coffee News". It is a small publication to amuse the restaurant clientele and promotes local businesses in the area. I remember first coming across it when I had my own restaurant back in 2005, we used to keep it for our guests amusements. There was a little item on there about a useful tattoo. It talks about a guy getting an eight-inch ruler tattooed on the inside of his arm - from elbow to wrist. He wanted it so he can a ruler available all the time, as it was an essential item for his work. The small blurb said that the man hails from Truth or Consequences, New Mexico; and I thought,
hmmm that would be an interesting place to visit. I suppose you'll be reading about that in some future roaming excursion of mine.
My Blizzard arrived, and I tell you, it was such a disappointment. I am NEVER going back to that
DQ again. Now my friend Cathy Elaine might not agree with my stand on this, as a matter of fact I know she doesn't, because we had discussed this very issue of whether or not we should report poor service and/or products to the company head quarters. The issue had come up when she asked if I ever answered the surveys that are requested by restaurants on their receipts. She said that one should fill out the survey, specially since the company is asking for it. My stand is that I don't need to answer a questionnaire to participate in the survey. If I am satisfied, I am participating by going back and if I am not, I am participating by boycotting them. Their bottom line will let them know if they are doing a good job or not, and a good company will not wait until it is too late to react to the numbers, but I digress.
As I consumed my disappointing Blizzard, which was an almost a shake, rather than a Blizzard, with a hint of bananas and coconut and laden with peanuts - not walnuts, and which was not presented in the way it is supposed to be, and I can see why and as I will explain shortly, I reminisced about the FIRST ever Blizzard that I had almost twenty years ago, incidentally along the I-45, but 150 miles to the north in Buffalo, Texas. It was so thick and rich and fluffy, that the person who handed it to me with a spoon inserted in the Blizzard,turned the cup upside down and it didn't drip. I later found out from a friend of mine who owned a
DQ that this was a standard presentation of blizzard, that turning the cup upside down was a part of the presentation and marketing technique. I sat there and reminisced and read the Coffee News and Tidbits 936, another publication of the same kind. Tidbits 936 had some interesting tidbits about dreams and dreaming and thought about how I would blog my travels and about my life as a nomad or a hobo.
Did you know that there is a BIG difference between a HOBO and a BUM? A hobo is a productive member of society with a code of ethics who has simply chose a lifestyle of living under the stars, or at the least not living too long under the same roof, but pull his own weight in the society and will even contribute towards it, whereas a bum is someone who is a free loader and/or a burden on the society, but might be living in a mansion, based on some news stories I had read several years ago.
Having run out of the excuse for a Blizzard and reading material, I headed up the road again, deciding that I will go as far as
Centerville, before heading back home. Well, I didn't get anywhere close to
Centerville, as my intuition prompted me to get off at the FM 1696 exit, as I mentioned in the earlier post. I love numbers, and 1696 caught my attention because 96 is a multiple of 16. :)
I intend to put links to the various places that I am mentioning in my blog so the reader may have a better understanding of where I am on my trips. I shall do that as I become more web and blog savvy, but until then it will be my secret, unless, of course, you ARE web savvy and can Google it for yourself. :)
