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and let our hair down for Dillon's special day. And we gave the one-
armed bandits a wide berth. Money is too scarce to be throwing it away.
July 12
We camped outside Atmore last night and, with everyone telling
me how skinny I'm looking, I thought I'd load up on calories with
a hearty breakfast at the Chevron service station cafe, where a big
fellow who looked like he'd been sampling his own cooking for the
past 20 years knocked me up a sumptuous feast of scrambled eggs
and what he called 'The Pork Trifecta': bacon, sausage and pork pat-
ties, all deep-fried in pork fat. He topped it off with stone ground
hominy corn grits with melted cheese. Nutritionists will frown, but it
was delicious, and at least, I figured, with all of this on board, I didn't
have to worry about my calorie intake for the rest of the day. I ran off
bursting with energy.
Soon after, the blue sky turned dark purple as thick, ominous
clouds descended. They seemed to be low enough for me to reach up
and touch them. A warning came over the radio in the van: 'A dangerous
storm is approaching,' crackled the voice of the announcer. 'If you are
in its path prepare immediately for damaging winds, destructive hail
and deadly cloud-to-ground lightning. People outside should move to
a shelter, preferably inside a strong building but away from windows.'
Within half an hour the rain was bucketing down, but thankfully the
hail and lightning spared us. I ran on through the downpour and peri-
odic deluges of water sprayed from the wheels of passing semitrailers,
glad of the relief from the searing heat of recent days. We crossed the
border from Alabama into Mississippi this afternoon.
Tomorrow, my brother Chris is arriving. He'll be with us for a
few months. Like Bernie, he's a good man in a crisis. I'm sad, though,
because the kids go home in two days. They'll be driven to the air-
port in New Orleans while I run my 85 kilometres. So tonight's dinner
was our 'last supper'. It was a happy meal, though tinged with sadness
because it was the last time that Brooke, Dillon and I will eat together
until they return in the next school holidays, in September. By that
time, God willing, I'll be in South America. We ate at a restaurant on
the road. And Dillon finally got his ribs, a full set that was bigger than
his plate. The watermelon juice was a treat, as were the beers.
