As promised, here's is generally what happened yesterday that make me so late getting to Athens. I got up at 6:30 and was planing on being on the road at 7:30. Then when I checked on B.A.T.s I notice that he had what looked like at first glance two holes gouged behind each ear. After a self cardio-recession, I got a hold of him to find out what was wrong. It turned out that it was two bad spots caused by him using those scimitars that he has for claws to scratch behind his ears. He had drawn blood and removed the fur, the fur removal gave the wounds an appearance of being gorged.
Ear mites are the only thing I can think of that'll cause a cat to scratch itself that hard. The next part wasn't going to be easy. I gather up B.A.T.s and sat him on a stool; grabbed a Q-tip and proceeded to probe. B.A.T.S held up his right paw, produced his scimitars claws and looked at me as if to calmly say, "Now listen here, ol' boy; We being friends and all, I'll allow you to have made this social faux pas this once but if it happens again I'll have to allow you to discuss this with my little friends".
This is why I keep welder's gloves.
The initial momentary probe was enough for me to gather ear mite dirt (for a moment I though that Johnson & Johnson had started using black cotton). Then I remembered that I had not seen the vial that contains the ear mite medicine for a while. So, what could I use to get him some temporary relief until I can secure the proper medication? Then I remembered that I had a vial of Tea Tree Oil. I donned the welder gloves, rolled a tube sock over B.A.T.s, leaving only his head out and putting a drop upon a Q-tip again I started to swab his ears. B.A.T.s is non-vocal so I didn't have to try and interpret his howls, yowls, and growls, into human curse words. I only had to deal with one attempted escape, and it would had made the million on America Funniest Home Video if I had only though to record it, where B.A.T.s escaped my grasp and tried to scoot across the floor, inch-worm style. He almost succeeded but I was able to subdue the gee-haw laughter in time to grab him.
Well, I finally got both ears swabbed and then the wounds tended with more Tea Tree Oil and proceeded to put a protective cone on his head (Yes, I forgot to get pictures). He sat looking at me with his head cocked to one side and that tip of his tongue sticking out as if he was going to say, "Now, is all this realllllllly nessasarry?"
It's already after 9 am. So after a quick gathering up of my paraphernalia and I'mout the door, only to realize that I have more paraphernalia that I need to gather up and out the door only to remember that I have more paraphernalia, etc..
{sensored} This!
I am off and down the road I roar.
A course at Raymond I remembered that I left the direction...
{sensored} {sensored} {sensored} {sensored} {sensored}!
Go back to get the stupid direction. Roaring down the road again. East of Griffin I made a bathroom break only to discovered that the right side saddle bag was now touching the exhaust pipe. A couple of moment fixing that and away I go. Jackson I stopped because it was a quarter til eleven and I didn't want the group needlessly waiting on me to show up so I called Phil and away I go again.
Madison was having a parade. The parade crossed over the main highway. They didn't have any clear Detours established so I must have wasted 1/2 hour before I headed out on Ga 83 north. Outside of town I stopped and consulted the GPS on routes. I found one and took a moment to memorize it. Then it was off again and made it back to US 129, the road from Madison to Athens, only to have to run another Detour because of a wreak. From what I could see it involved a mobile-home being towed. It could have been a repo and the trouble was that the folks it was being repo-ed from had chased them down and forced the driver off the road.
Off and then back on again only to have another wreck detour me, outside of Watkinsville. Now I also needed fuel. So, it was off to find the gas stations, and fuel up and rest up for a moment or two. Got a refreshing drink and consulted the Mighty Google Maps again. I was less the 5 miles away. The gas station was at the turn off to go from Watkinsville to Athens. So, this leg of the trip was almost over and I made it without anymore incidents, except for that cretin that decided to pass me when I'm doing 45 mph in a 35 mph zone then slows down to 40 mph; but lets not get into how satisfying it would have been for me to have had a howitzer mounted on my handle bars at that moment.
At the Gardens I made it down to the visitor center and was going to change into hiking clothes then try and find my group, only to come upon my group at the visitor center already after finishing their hike and were all getting ready to disperse to go home.
Luckily the LaRue's weren't ready to leave just yet, they're into geocaching, and there was a few spots they wanted to check out. So I hung out with them and did a little geocaching with them, that one they found around the Day chapel was was very cleverly hid, (no I'm not tellin'; find it yourself). And then it was off to the Varsity in Athens, I had checked my grease level and it was way down so I was safe.
After a good visit with nostalgic fast food we parted our ways and the LaRue's headed home while I headed back to the gardens.
My camera started messing up and so I didn't get the tons of pictures but for anyone that are familiar with Calloway's garden; well, Calloway's look like someone's back yard compared to the State's Botanical Gardens. And the neat thing is that there is so much here that you can walk down a path, return on the same path and see thing you missed the first time around and still not have seen it all.
Yes, I'm coming back.
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