Santee, SC
Thankfully, today's travel was very uneventful and it was the kind of travel I prefer -- all on Interstate 95 with no traffic and no road construction and fairly decent roads. We traveled almost 200 miles and were able to stop approximately every 50 miles at rest areas to stretch our legs and change drivers. We landed at a rest area here. There is a sign posted, among other things, no overnight parking, but hopefully they don't have the personnel to enforce that or even keep track of who arrived when (we got here at 4:00). Naturally, we'll be fully clothed for bed and ready to hit the road if needed, but praying that won't be the case. Plan is to hit the road around 7 am tomorrow, and arrive at our next destination, which will be a campground, at noon. We have about 175 miles to travel.Oddly enough, although my work has been very slow over the past few months, this week clients decided they needed me!!! I'm not complaining about having billable hours, but the timing really sucks!
One more thing I really need to make a note of. It is a political statement so please just close this and don't read on if you don't want to read it......
Last night, on the way to meet the kids for dinner, we were pulled over by the police. Apparently, all of our back lights on the truck were out (no running lights or tail lights). It's probably a bad fuse somewhere. In addition, our registration expired the week before (in Florida, you only get a tag to put on the vehicle -- no paper). We paid for it but it didn't arrive in the mail yet so we had nothing to prove that the vehicle was legally registered. So in affect, we had 2 strikes against us. The officer was extremely nice. He liked us and noted that he thought our vehicle was used for business and said we seemed like really nice people. We built a rapport explaining our traveling lifestyle and how we were just meeting our daughter for dinner. We promised to look into the issue in the morning. But here's the catch.... we got off without even a ticket. But what if we were black??? I really hate to think of it, but I'm truly convinced that if we were black, we would not have gotten off anywhere near as easy as we did. Not only would we have received a fine, but I wouldn't be surprised if we were arrested. Just food for thought here, folks. This is not a fair world we live in.
I grew up in SW MI. I have lived in a few states and 3 southern states, but the southern state locations were near military installations. I don't think there is anyway to judge what may have happened. I see the worst of what happens having to do with the gang mentality where it is the "thing" to do to be a part of a group even when it is something one would otherwise not do. As a mother of an adult son with Down syndrome, there are still a lot of people for whom an education about discrimination does no good. It is tough having grown up and seeing people, just people, to listen to some of what I have heard, but I always voice my opinion of what they are saying about my classmates of the past and friends, and that is probably the most that I can do. My older son married a very nice lady of Filipino descent, and of course, I got a lot of opinions about that! "You can't fix stupid.", but I keep trying!
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