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Kentucky Rain1/15/2020 Just before leaving Florida my friend asked if I had checked the weather. I told him I had not. He told me there was a lot of weather coming in the next day from the gulf. I assured him I would be long gone by then. He said the weather could reach well into the mid-west and I should try to keep my route as easterly as possible. I thanked him for the heads up, and started north.
The overcast sky followed me whole drive north on I-75 through Florida and into Georgia. I was hoping it would clear as the night would bring the first full moon of the year – the Wolf Moon. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, I turned west on I-24 - so did the overcast. It followed me all the way into Kentucky. I brought a can of beer with me and kept it in the cooler. I left one for her in the refrigerator at home. I thought, after dark, I would find a cool place to stop for the night and call my wife. Even though we were a thousand miles apart, we could watch the full moon together while enjoying a New Glarus, Moon Man brew. The overcast scrubbed my plan and I kept driving. Melissa called around 11:00 to tell me how pretty the moon was. “I’m standing outside on the deck.” She told me, “The moon is so bright on the snow, it looks like daylight.” I was jealous; wanting to be there with her. I wasn’t going to drive much farther before calling it a night. The rain was starting to fall lightly and I was getting tired, so I pulled into a parking lot in Princeton, Kentucky. “We’re going to crash here for the night.” I told my dog as I let her out in a small grassy area before bed. June wanted to run across the road to a wooded area. “You can’t go over there alone after dark, this is Kentucky and they have wildcats.” I don’t know if they really do or not, but it is the mascot of their university sport teams and I wasn’t taking any chances. “I’m not afraid of cats.” June assured me. “Yes, you are. You’re afraid of Edgar (our cat at home) and she’s not nearly as big as the cats around here. And besides that, we already had an alligator scare today.” Earlier in the day, June jumped into a moss covered, swampy area in Florida… …I was pinned between the two large animals…flash flood warnings…Elvis was singing… WE ARE WAITING FOR THE WEB VERSION OF THE RST OF TOMS STORY THIS WEEK. He has not submitted the rest of this weeks story. For the rest of this story, visit our website at https://www.fairmontphotopress.com/tom-palen-archives
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