Scribble World Travel Blog

Autozone And The Cool Thing That Picks Up Bolts

We’re resting in a Walmart parking lot in Huntsville, Alabama. The weekly rental places we checked out were insanely expensive. We had dinner at the New China Buffet and it was very good with a nice selection of sushi and my favorite-hot and sour soup, and a great shrimp and zucchini dish.

We had our battery tested at Autozone earlier today after a couple weeks of weak starts, and they confirmed it was a bad battery. While installing the new one for us, the employee accidentally dropped a bolt down into the transmission. Cringing, I thought that was going to be a problem, but another guy went in the store and brought out this extendable thing that looked like an antenna with a magnet on it. It was a piece of cake to fish the bolt out. How many others could benefit from this amazing little tool, I wonder?

I was so impressed, I think the guy was embarassed-he said I could keep it.

Honking Security Guard In Montgomery Alabama

On a whim, Chris drove us to Montgomery, AL.  It was nearly midnight when we arrived at a Walmart, but we went in to buy some water and reparked in the back of the parking lot which was nearly empty.  Chris crawled up to bed, and I was just about to join him when an overzealous security guard came shining his bright lights and honking at us.  I rolled down my window and he sounded downright gleeful, rich with “power” as he told us we had to get out of there, no “hangin’ out.”  I was upset by his rude demeanor and said they wouldn’t be getting any more of our business.  He said, “don’t matter” and continued to circle us and honk until we left.  Even though we’d only bought water, I was tempted to return it on account of this guys lack of manners and the ridiculous 10% sales tax they charged.

Anyway, we’re in a Baptist church parking lot now.  1:43 AM

Continued 4 A.M’ish-  Sadly for us, we were again awoken around 3A.m. with a spotlight shining into our vehicle.  I rolled down the window and fished out our I.D. for the cop.  At  least this was a nice guy, he just needed to make sure we weren’t felons on the run since there would be children soon arriving at the church’s daycare. We decided to move on and found a park, where finally we were left undisturbed and slept a few more hours.

We walked around the Montgomery capitol building and toured the Civil Rights Memorial.  It was $2/person, there was information about some of the victims of hate crimes, a 20 minute video, and a wall where we typed our names-pledging to defend equality & soon our names joined the other names flowing down the screen.  A touching experience.

We have met some very nice people on this trip, and that Walmart employee was by far the exception.  At Costco, a guy noticed our cargo rack was kind of awkwardly tilting to one side and helped me re-center our cargo.  Then he fished a bungee cord out of his car and strapped that on to help stabilize it. He said he felt better about it now. I just thought that was extremely kind of a stranger to take the time to give a darn about someone he’d never see again.  The women are friendly too, I get a lot of smiles, hellos and “how are you’s?” which I’m not used to at all, just from walking past someone in a store.  Southern hospitality at it’s finest.