81 or 78 - what's the diff????

I wake up early and decide to make coffee and head to the campground.

I visit the bathroom for one last time and on my way back, a young white guy is standing on the sidewalk between me and my truck. He has a smallish dog on a leash that is barking aggressively at me.

He smiles apologetically, picks the dog up, and explains to me he’s just a puppy.

I pass him and go to my camper door. The guy asks me if my van (which I correct him with truck) is a camper. He tells me he has a travel trailer but hasn’t been able to do much traveling, but would like to.

There’s a white car parked two spots over from my truck and someone in the car says something I can’t hear so I ask the guy what the man said.

He says “That’s my dad and he says you should paint on your truck “Abolish Biden”.

Interesting – I don’t tell him to paint his own fuckin car, afterall, it’s obvious that even though he hasn’t passed my truck, he has read the back of it, probably while I was in the bathroom.

I ask him why he thinks I should paint “abolish biden” on my truck.

He looks a little bashful or just confused, as I smile and try to put him at ease, while trying to gather facts about biden that can put a positive spin on him – so positive this man might consider not voting for tRump, which is obviously the direction he’s heading.

Finally he tells me, “Obviously, it’s because Biden is so old.”

Although this guy does have grey hair and plenty of wrinkles, I’m thinking he’s probably in his 50’s or early 60’s.

“How old is that,” I ask, curious and open.

“81” he barks out as if he’s smelled something odious.

“Wow, old” I agree. “So tRump is your choice?” I say to his confident nods.

“So, how old is tRump then?” I ask

This guy doesn’t have a clue and tries to say maybe 60 or so. I laugh, not too unkindly and say he’s about to be 78 years old. If I’m doing the math right, I say he’s like three years younger that biden. So I guess that means he’s not going to vote for tRump either.

I have no other interesting conversations so it’s time to head out to check out the campground and cross fingers on this easter Sunday folks are going to be in church and not camping.

Mississippi

I’ve encountered several middle fingers out driver’s side windows, a couple of those black diesel exhaust dumps, and tractor trailer disturbed long honk travelling the rest of Alabama, but no overtly violent hostility.

In fact, the positive honks, waves, peace symbols and thumbs up seem to outnumber the negative probably about 3 to 1 – at least from what I notice.

I’ve decided to spend the night at the Mississippi Welcome Center and then tomorrow, I’ll go to the De Soto National Forest for a couple reasons: first the sun hasn’t been strong enough to keep my solar working properly and I’m concerned my food might spoil. My backup plan would be to buy ice for the refrigerator, but I really don’t want to spend money doing that.

Secondly, I need to be in nature for respite and re-invigorating my self. The campground I find is small, has full hookups so I can recharge my batteries, and it’s cheap at $13/night. The only issue could be space, as it is first come, first serve.

I decide to park close to the bathrooms and on the car side so I don’t have to deal with any of the truckers. The night is very quiet and peaceful. Before retiring, I walk around the grounds so I put in 3 miles for the day – a walk I really need after driving so far.