Heimblog

I’m still a day behind…

So yesterday I woke up and felt sick to my stomach, and it was raining, and I had slept in til 9 by mistake. Clearly I was not meant to travel. So I went downstairs and booked my hotel room for another day, and then went back to bed. This did not last long because I felt the compulsion to go exploring, even though I was ill. I cannot explain this compulsion; I can normally keep it in check, but not when I have a rental car waiting for me right outside!

But it was cold and raining and also raining coldness. I bought a cheap umbrella and plotted a course to the “Hay House” for a tour. It was picked primarily by dint of being indoors and also relatively close. A mere “10 minutes, with traffic” away from my hotel!

About 40 minutes later I managed to get to Hay House. I had learned several important things about Macon, GA. First, like other cities in Georgia (and much of Alabama, it turns out), the roads have a peculiarity: they are all named Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. This takes some getting used to, as it can be difficult to navigate at first. However, it saves on road sign costs. Second, downtown Macon has my most dreaded of driving foes: one-way roads that do not have parallel roads going the opposite direction nearby. They are true one-way roads, and if you miss your spot, you are doomed to wander eternally, or, as my iPhone recommended, get back on the highway a few miles away, turn around and go back to the original stop, and try again. This was absolutely infuriating.

Finally, I learned that the proprietors of Hay House do not actually want or encourage visitors. They use trick signs to try to drive you away. The sign directing you to parking actually drops you out in the middle of a street, a one-way street, no less. It is possible to get back in without having to go back onto the highway, so their trick isn’t quite perfect. But nevertheless, it works reasonably well. If you ignore the arrow and just drive the other way, you come to a small parking area behind the house with room for 8 or 10 cars, and 9 slots taken up. I assumed it was staff parking, but since there was nowhere else to park, I parked there anyway, and took a look at the back of the building.

Pretty cool. Hey, are those stained-glass?

Yes! Nice, I like taking photos of stained glass. So I head to the door.

The door is locked and nobody answers when I knock. There is a sign saying that tours start every hour on the hour, and no photography allowed inside, and to ring the bell for service.

It is about 15 minutes before the hour, so I go and sit in the car and read. The hour mark comes and goes. Nobody comes in or out. Was I supposed to ring the bell? I guess I was. I head up to do that, then decide that is a stupid idea, and drive away.

The reason is simple: it is one thing to take a guided tour with several other people. It is a very different thing to ask for a PRIVATE guided tour of a house. I would be very uncomfortable making small talk with the tour guide the entire time. This is something that would work better if Sandra were here to help instill some sense of normalcy. But she wasn’t, and fuck them, I couldn’t take photos anyway.

I tried to take a snapshot of the awesome “NO” signs on the roads in Macon, but I didn’t manage it. Sometimes, for no apparent reason and without any context whatsoever, there are signs attached to overpasses with just the word “NO”. Nothing else. Just that. NO.

I assume it is intended to break drivers’ spirits and force them to obey traffic laws. It works reasonably well. My spirit broken, I returned to my hotel and stayed the rest of the day indoors. I read. I played the new Zelda game (which, I’m sad to say, literally put me to sleep during the first hour of “gameplay”). When I got antsy I went down to the workout room and worked out for a while. For dinner I went to Outback across the street, and finished my book in front of a batch of cheese fries. In short, I rested. I rested with the sort of gusto one can only manage after having been driving for many straight hours the days before.

Then I slept.