It feels like Fall in Tennessee!

I drove up to Knoxville this morning and found the weather to be beautiful and the traffic to be non-existent. It was probably the fastest trip up yet (seemed like it that is). I arrived in town, got allergy shots, and then bought gas as I was running on fumes by this point. The weather was a little brisk with strong winds and felt like the weather should in early October. I wished we had planned on hiking/camping this weekend instead as the weather was perfect for that. I dropped my car off at my parent's house and rode with mom out to Turkey Creek to accompany her on a couple of errands. I had her drop me off at Hickey's house once he was though with CCR training.

We commenced preparing the bike to be shipped to the buyer from ebay and it proved more difficult than originally expected. We had picked up a box from a bicycle shop in West Knoxville and all we had to do was make it fit in the box. Simple right? No! We had to take off both tires (after removing the front and rear brakes), lower the seat, and remove the pedals. We were able to do all but remove the pedals and we couldn't figure out how to get them apart. We finally threw up the white flag and took it to West Bicycle Shop in Farragut to seek advice. The gentleman we spoke with told us to bring the bike in and they could help. He removed the pedal within a few minutes...and then charged us $5 for his troubles. Looking back it really wasn't a big deal, but I would have appreciated him telling us up front that he would help for a price. We took the fully dismantled bike and pieces and packed it up in a box to take to a UPS store to ship out to West Palm Beach, FL. We stopped off at the Goodwill store near FHS to see if we could find any random t-shirts for summer time. No such luck so on to UPS we went. When we arrived the employee behind the counter asked where we got the box from because they charge a minimum of $35 for a bicycle box from them. We shipped out the bike for a reasonable amount of money and then grabbed some lunch at Sam and Andy's. This was, as I'm ashamed to say, my first time eating at the Farragut location and it's reputation was not let down as I had a Vol Burger and fries with some of the best sweet tea I've ever tasted. We drove to Movies for sale where I purchased several movies for the employee discount since it was Hickey's last day working there.

Mom picked me up and took me back to my car. I then drove out to Amy and Jon's house to play some Super Metroid on the Wii before we met for my mom's birthday dinner. It reminded me a summers spent with Amy and Michael back when we were in middle/high school and life made sense (most of the time). We met at McAlister's for dinner and then returned to Amy and Jon's for presents and dessert. After the festivities I played a bit more on the game and then made another movie run for dad and Jon at Movies for Sale before Hickey closed up for the night. I bought the DVDs and then after talking briefly with Hickey and company, headed home to grab some sleep.

Meditation for the day: James 1:2 "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds"