Some moments from the road:

1) A line of electrical line repair trucks – about 40 strong – just south of Cincinnati, headed south.

2) Law enforcement…saw COPS replayed all over the place. Three police with dogs, searching by the side of the road north of Chattanooga. Trunks being searched on the side of 75 in North Florida. Twice. We were seated at a window booth at this restaurant in Gainesville (of sentimental import because our wedding lunch/reception was at the Lakeland edition of this place), greeted by our server, whose eyes widened because right outside the window, a police officer was in the middle of a lengthy conversation with a vagrant (we knew it had been going on for a while, because we’d driven by a couple of times before we went in), whom he eventually handcuffed and put in the car.

3) I was in a convenience store restroom in south Georgia, crammed, as mothers often are, in a stall with Joseph. His eyes widened and he said, "There’s a dog!" and he started to bend over to peer into the next stall -before I grabbed him and hauled him up, and hissed, "They don’t let dogs in restrooms." He just stared at me, waiting, no doubt, for the moment of truth.  Right after we got out, the occupant of that stall followed – an amazingly tall, thin blonde, dressed in white capris and a white tank top, clicking across the floor in high-heeled slides..carrying a little tiny dog. Of course I continued to watch her as she click-clacked back out to her yellow jeep at the gas pump. She reappeared at the Chick-Fil-A next door, but this time with a companion, who was driving a little sports car – another tall, thin blonde, dressed almost identically, but her tube top had a sort of a train or something on it. No dog.  The cars had Cobb county plates – they had a very model-like look about them. Perhaps they were.