The last time I found myself driving through Winston-Salem at 4:30AM was about fifteen years ago. A friend and I had hooked up with these two guys at The Edge in Greensboro (before they tore it down to build a Kinko’s) and we’d driven the 25 miles to their apartment in Winston for the ensuing cheap thrills. I probably wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t been a little inebriated; they were relatively cute, I guess, but definitely not worth quite so much effort.
Today, it was different. Rather than being very late at night, 4:30AM was now very early in the morning. I was driving Mark to the airport so he could fly back to San Francisco for another two weeks in Purgatory. It was harder than usual to let him go this time, maybe because he was home longer than usual and I got more used to it. And maybe it was because I’ve had a fair amount on my mind the past few days.
Since I ventured out so early, I was able to have a Charlotte Observer and Greensboro News and Record in my hands before my local paper was delivered.
It’s interesting that, even though the airport here is twenty miles away and is actually in a whole different county, it takes about the same amount of time to drive there as it used to take us to get to the one in Charlotte when we lived there. Come to think of it, it also took about the same amount of time to get to the San Francisco airport, depending on traffic. This could be a pattern in my life, but it probably isn’t.
I also noticed today that the McDonald’s locations in Winston-Salem open earlier than the ones in Charlotte. The Target and Lowes stores stay open later here too, but I already knew that.
Once I’m up in the morning, I’m pretty much up for the day. That’s not to say I didn’t make a valiant effort to try to go back to sleep when I got home. My mind was occupied by a lot of things I have to do over the next few days, but I did manage to nod off for a few minutes while it was still dark out.