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Wednesday, May 16, 2018

Where Did They Hide the Grocery Store? - 14 April 2018


14 April 2018 – I got up and went downstairs for breakfast. I noticed a bit of a different mood in the place. Then I looked at the TV screen and all over it is newscasters talking about how the U.S.A., Great Britain and France were launching missiles strikes against Syria. So, I’m wondering how that will affect me down here. I’ll just have to watch and see how it plays out. Trump is not well liked down here. So, tomorrow is my blast off date…….I can stay no longer. I plan on traveling up Hwy 12 and Hwy 118 to Santa Rosa, Argentina. Another small town and small hotel. I’ve got to go the grocery store and resupply my food and water again. The hotel seems pretty quiet today for some reason. Anyway, off to oil the chain on my motorcycle and get my shopping done.

This is kind of funny. So, I off to go grocery shopping. I’m on this street which is a street at a 45 degree angle to the city plaza and all the other streets in the city. Each of the 4 corners of the city plaza has a street which projects out at 45 degree angle like this. This town is not the only town to lay out its streets like that. I get down to the plaza and I’m getting myself orientated. I have to walk back to the hotel and I don’t want to get lost. It’s not impossible to do. Anyway, I walk past an ice cream place and a small restaurant. I arrive at the corner where I know where I’m at. I keep looking for familiar land marks because I was at this grocery store before. I walking and I’m not seeing it and I’m getting ticked off because I can’t find it. I should be able to reach out and touch it. I keep walking on all 4 sides of the plaza. The grocery store just disappeared.

I walked by a museum on the outside of the plaza square and you’ll never guess what was setting there. It was an old 10-20. Most everyone in my family knows what the 10-20 is / was. It’s an old tractor which we had on the farm. It’s a McCormick-Deering Tractor. Manufactured sometime around 1927. 3 speeds forward and 1 reverse. 10 horsepower on the draw bar and 20 on the pulley. This one still had the steel wheels on it. I almost jumped the fence to pet it. It had a lot of parts missing and it made me sad to see that.

Anyway, I decided it’s time to ask directions to the grocery store. I have to be near it. So there stands a guy my age and I stopped to ask him where it was. He does a great job of telling where it is in Spanish which I only understand two words of. He also is using hand gestures to show me were to go. I thanked him and off I go. I was going in the right direction but then I veered off track and didn’t know it.

All of a sudden someone was hollering but I didn’t know it was at me. Pretty soon same guy catches up to me and tells me I am going the wrong direction. He’s huffing and puffing. I don’t think he was more than 100 yards / 100meters from me when he decided to catch me. He points in the direction I should be going all the while he catching his breath. I thought that was nice of him. He keeps walking with me till I’m about 50 yards / 50 meters from the store and makes sure I see the store before he leaves. I thanked him and shook his hand as he departed. I took one street to soon that’s why I missed the store.

On the way back to the hotel I stopped in the restaurant I passed on the way to the store and ordered up a hamburger and fries. This hamburger was better than the other two hamburgers I purchased in another restaurant. I have done a fair amount of walking during my stay here in this town. On three occasions I was almost attacked by different dogs. I mean they were serious about taking a chomp out of my leg. If I would have made an aggressive move these dogs would have bitten me. They’re not rabbit dogs, they’re dogs wandering around the city. Every city and gas station have them. I was wishing I had some of that bear spray / mace. I would have gassed them on the spot. I just kept on walking and tried to ignore them. One of them rushed me in an attempt to scare me and I thought for sure I was going to get bitten. I know if they’d had latch on to my leg it would have been a trip to the hospital. Thankfully that didn’t happen. I made it the hotel without incident.

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