Firstly, I wish to say hello and welcome to any new readers who may have wandered here from the pipe forums. I know a few have expressed interest in my silly drivel about life on the road, and perhaps have even taken a bit of their precious time to visit my little blog to see what sort of nonsense I have managed to pound out on my keyboard.

Don’t expect glorious works of prose here, dear reader, because the truth is most of it is rather boring minutia and rather badly written minutia at that.

As Ida was rapidly moving in on the Mobile area I checked into a rather cheap motel in Saraland, AL. It’s what some would call a “Habib Hotel”, but the folks here seem rather nice if somewhat lacking in their mastery of the English language. The place isn’t fancy but it’s clean, has a nice big television, fridge, and microwave, and for forty bucks per night, tax included.

And the roof doesn’t leak. That’s a good thing as it’s raining like hell outside at the moment thanks to Ida.

After checking in I went to Wally World and stocked up on cold cuts, bread, Gatorade, and of course beer. The basic necessities of life during a storm ya know.

I then went to the mall to get some additional pipe tobacco. I wasn’t in any danger of running out, I had enough to last a couple of weeks at least, but one can never have too much. The walk across the mall parking lot in the rain reminded me that I hadn’t yet replaced the umbrella that for some perverse reason known only to umbrellas decided to break on me in the middle of a storm a few weeks back.

I visited the Tinder Box and picked up a half pound of their North Sea pipe tobacco. As I was talking to her while she was ringing things up (I had also picked up a new tobacco pouch, a rather ugly plaid one, and some rubber tips), asking about other items I spied on the shelves behind her, she accidentally only rang up a single ounce of the tobacco instead of the full eight ounces I was actually purchasing.

When she announced the price, which was just about what the tobacco itself should have been, I questioned her as to whether that price was right. She realized her mistake, was polite enough to not tell me that if I had just shut up and let her do her job she wouldn’t have made the mistake in the first place, thanked me for my honesty in the matter, and gave me the new, correct total. I kind of liked the first price better, but fair is fair.

Besides, I didn’t want to have to slink through the mall carrying my bag of tobacco and other products looking over my shoulder waiting for some tobacco shop cashier to come chase me down and pummel me about the head and shoulders with a heavy clay churchwarden or something. With my bad hip I run much the same way an Olympic sprinter does, assuming that he was competing with both legs in casts and with a terrible hangover after a night out at the pub drinking tequila and Jello shooters, so I am certain I couldn’t have outrun her.

The rain is coming down, gradually falling harder and harder. So far the winds haven’t really picked up all that much, for which I am glad. Ida is now just a tropical storm, but even a tropical storm can be quite fierce. I’ve been through quite a few in my lifetime. She’s due to make landfall over night tonight. As long as she doesn’t disturb my sleep, which is doubtful as I am consuming liberal quantities of beer, everything will be just fine.

I just hope that if she somehow decides to come over and flatten this motel, killing all and sundry inside, I wake up for that. If I’m going to get killed by a storm I would sure hate to miss it.  Of course that is extremely unlikely, but ya never know. If it happens I don’t want to show up in the afterlife and be asked how I died just to reply “Beats the shit out of me, I slept through it.” How embarrassing would that be?

At this point I think the worst thing that will happen tonight is that I may stub my toe while stumbling to the bathroom in the dark.

Oh yeah, in case you were wondering I did pick up a new umbrella. A nice black Totes with a wooden handle. I can already sense that it has evil ambitions to break on me during a heavy rainstorm when I am as far as possible from any sort of shelter.