A Living Magazine - Day 225 - Homecoming - Gastonia: An Appointment To Keep

Okay, so this worked out perfectly until the morning. Like every day for the last week, all I wanted to do was keep sleeping. But for the very same reasons, I could not. I sat up, put on my shoes, did the pack up, then disassembled the tent. It was not tricky to make my way out of the woods, and again stepped onto the street when no cars were in sight.

It was a longer walk to Starbucks. The sky had been overcast all night, but patches of blue could be seen through the clouds passing over...  

I had a very important appointment at noon, but was still able to get most of the day's blog post written before leaving at about 10:00 a.m. to meet the person in question...

I needed to walk about three miles to the Gaston County Library on Garrison Street. I was doing pretty well with my timing and trying to look for things to photograph as I walked...

Cool! Nice modern building.

It struck me that Gastonia was growing in many different ways. I don't know if this is really true or not, but I had the strong sense that the town was very interested in renewing itself. The east end of town - as I mentioned in the last post - certainly was growing, having added perhaps a dozen stores in just the last two years. This kind of development feeds on itself. People from smaller nearby towns will be attracted to an area where they can do all of their shopping and go out to eat as well, all in one place. Despite the lack of accommodations for people who walk around that mall area (something that will probably be rectified at some point), the increase in popularity there must surely potentiate the flow of money back into the city. This gives a lot of options for improving cultural activities like art and music. I passed a couple of parks that must be very nice in the summer... 

A small park on Garrison.

Then I made a classic IWALLK error. I was distracted by this place...

The Science Museum.

The kid in me came out and kept walking on, thinking about how cool it would be to see a planetarium show! The library was just on the other side of the street. I went on and on not seeing any library. Then it occurred to me to check the screenshot I'd made of the route and realized my mistake. I'd walked a good half mile past the library. So, I turned around and made it back there right before noon, sweating of course...

The appointment went very, very well, and I hope to talk about it in a few days. I hiked back to the intersection of 74 and Cox, taking pictures along the way...

See, good church work! Giving.

This man has an extra meaning for me.

Mommy what's this?

Cool rain and leaf patterns that reminded me a bit

of what iron filings do at the ends of a battery.

Then, came that critical and frustrating time: crossing the intersection. I had to run across one lane, then stand in the little median strip until I could cross the other lane...

The intersection of 74 and Cox as seen from Cox after the crossing.

No crosswalks and no walk lights. Downtown does have those things.

I was so won-over by the Dynasty Buffet the day before that I headed straight there...

I think using Powerade (or whatever it is) for water is a bit much. 

It had been a great day and I really enjoyed my meal...

Salad and sushi.

As I spoke of in the last post, I have a system for avoiding the unpleasant side effect of Asian buffets. It is easy at a place with good food. I use the little-each-time method. That way I get to try a bunch of stuff, and I feel full before I've completely gorged. I know I've been doing a lot of complaining lately, but I often see people with plates with a lot of food left on them. Just because you can waste food, doesn't mean you have to, geesh.

I got online, processed and uploaded my pictures. Then I went out and found another sleep spot that I had checked out online first...

At Walgreens. The magic of medicine shown as little stars...

Should have been little dollar signs, I thought.

This was probably the best one of all. There were no signs, the trees were more tightly packed and not as tall, and the area is somewhat sheltered from the view of passing cars by a small hill that runs along the side of the road, but behind the tree line is actually woods...

It was a bit foggy as the dew point was reached. This would happen again the next morning. I cleared the sticks out from where the tent would be, and was again on a leaf cushion. Not bad. I slept well.

Gastonia Sleep Spot 3

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