Adventures at Eagle's Aerie: Of Boxes, Bugs, and Blytheville

The car i rented is a box.

We used to have a box on wheels, a Volvo. At least, i thought it was a box. The Nissan Cube has it beat by a mile in that sense.

Sweetie loved the fact that it was a Nissan, and thought it was great, a nice, safe car.

Because it is a box, it's not very aerodynamic. The windshield/windscreen, whatever you wish to term it, goes straight up. Every bug that comes anywhere near splatters all over it.

There was no fluid in the reservoir for the wiper blades.

Of the several times i stopped to get gas, or water, or whatever, i kept forgetting to use the squeegee at the station, until Blytheville.

That's where i stopped at a store to buy more bananas, and grapefruit, and ice to keep the shrimp cold.

To save money, i never checked into a hotel, i just pulled into the corner of a truck stop, leaned back, and was almost asleep when Ninja texted me, at 12:30 am to tell me SG was also going to be there. It took another while to fall back asleep, and i was up by 4am and on the road again not long after.

Today is

Augustalia -- Roman Empire (birthday of Caesar Augustus, still the traditional New Year's Day in Constantinople and in the Eastern Orthodox Church)

Bunster Winding -- Fairy Calendar

Celtic Classic Highland Games & Festival -- Bethlehem, PA, US (US's largest highland games and Celtic Festival; through the 25th)

Chästeilet im Justistal -- Switzerland (dividing of the cheese, annual)

Checkers Day/Dogs in Politics Day -- thanks to Mr. Nixon; and i'm tempted t further comment, but this one is too easy

Citua -- Ancient Inca Empire (feast to the Moon, and to banish disease, in the month of Coyaraimi, date approximate)

Equinox
Mabon -- Wicca/Pagan Northern Hemisphere
Ostara -- wicca/Pagan Southern Hemisphere
related celebrations:
Alban Elfed -- Celtic Winter Finding
Chuseok -- Korean harvest festival
Feast of Carpo -- Greek Horae, goddess of autumn
Kukulcan Snake God Celebration -- Chichen Itza, Yucatan, Mexico (the snake appears at the equinox, a time to honor this Mayan god)
Festival of the Sea Goddess -- Eskimo
Higan -- Japan
Mabon/Fallfest -- Ancient Norse Calendar (harvest festival, time to make wine and mead for the next winter)
Oenach Carman -- Ancient Celtic Calendar
Sendai Great Tug-of-War -- Sendai, Japan (festival on the equinox that dates back over 400 years)

Hug a Vegetarian Day -- i'm open!

Indigenous Peoples' Day -- a day to honor Native Americans and their life-affirming spiritual traditions

Love Note Day -- take pen and paper and send that special someone a love note today

National Day/Foundation of the Kingdom -- Saudi Arabia

National White Chocolate Day

Neptune Day

Rettir -- Iceland (through the 26th in Reykjavic in association with a music festival; a traditional sheep round up celebrated in Iceland during September, actual round up dates may vary from region to region)

Shubun no hi -- Japan (honoring of the ancestors)

St. Adamnan's Day

St. Padre Pio's Day

Svarog's Holiday -- Slavic Pagan Calendar (day to drink mead in honor of Svarog, god of fire and the sky)


Anniversaries Today:

The University of Alberta in Alberta, Canada, is founded, 1908


Birthdays Today:

Jason Alexander, 1959
Bruce Springsteen, 1949
Mary Kay Place, 1947
Paul Petersen, 1945
Julio Iglesias, 1943
Tom Lester, 1938
Ray Charles, 1930
John Coltrane, 1926
Mickey Rooney, 1920
Walter Pigeon, 1897
William H. McGuffey, 1800
Kublai Khan, 1215
Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus, BC63
Euripides, BC480


Today in History:

Concord of Worms, 1122
The first major battle of the Wars of the Roses, at Blore Heath in Staffordshire, 1459
First commencement exercises of Harvard College in Cambridge, Mass., 1642
Liechtenstein declares its independence from the German Empire, 1719
John Paul Jones' "Bon Homme Richard" defeats the HMS Serepis, 1779
Lewis and Clark arrive back in St. Louis from their explorations, 1806
The Knickerbockers Baseball Club, the first baseball team to play under the modern rules, is founded in New York, 1845
Neptune is discovered by French astronomer Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier and British astronomer John Couch Adams, 1846
Nintendo Koppai, later known as Nintendo Company, Limited, is founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi; it produces and markets the playing card game Hanafuda, 1889
The Phantom of the Opera (original title: Le Fantome de l'Opera), a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux, was first published, 1909
The MS Princess of Tasmania, Australia’s first passenger roll-on/roll-off diesel ferry, makes her maiden voyage across Bass Strait, 1959
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos announces over television and radio the implementation of martial law, 1972
Juan Perón returns to power in Argentina, 1973
Saint Kitts and Nevis joins the United Nations, 1983
Qantas Flight 1 overruns the runway in Bangkok during a storm; some passengers only receive minor injuries, it is still the worst crash in Qantas's history, 1991
The first public version of the web browser Mozilla Firefox ("Phoenix 0.1") is released, 2002
Hurricane Jeanne strikes Haiti and leaves at least 1,070 dead, 2004