So of course the first day there, after Johnny sort of left, but not really, Ollie got out some way. I no longer remember the particulars but I can still hear Joyce screaming. Anyway, being the more philosophical of the two of us, I went inside to call the police to keep a lookout while Joyce ran around outside like a chicken with its head cut off, except, of course, a real chicken head can't scream. It was almost sunset at that point and I figured he'd taken off into the woods behind the house and would be gone till morning, or forever. I was in the kitchen, calling, looking out the front of the house, describing Ollie, when suddenly Joyce pops up in the front porch window, holding him over her head. Disaster averted!
I thanked the dispatcher for her patience and went to get the details, and of course, help Joyce up the front steps with the dog. Did I mention Joyce brought her cane along? She never uses it except if we anticipate a lot of stairs with no railings. Well, Tse-Tse- Fly had zero railings. So she ran out without the cane and was trying to carry Ollie up the porch stairs, which wasn't going very well. So I got them in and Joyce said he had actually crossed the road twice, right in front of her, and the second time he got close enough to grab. I guess his over-bonding with his Mama surpassed his curiosity about running away in the dark in the woods. It was nothing but good karma/divine intervention that kept him from being run over.
Next day, neither of us wanted to move from the house because the weather was sort of dribbling rain, but frankly, I wanted some kinds of food we didn't have (like bread, which the general store didn't have, although they had trapping bait). So we both finally managed to take showers in the Coffin (the bathroom was exceedingly narrow, especially for people who are excedingly wide) and drive to Wellsboro. It was the kind of drive Joyce hates (narrow road with lots of twists, turns and tailgating) but the kind of scenery she loves, by which I mean vistas of turning leaves. So I drove while she shrieked about one thing or another. After a looong time in the supermarket, she came out with lots of stuff in brand new shitbags and we started to drive home, except the town was so pretty we pulled over to take pictures. Not only were the leaves changing but they had decorated for Halloween/Thanksgiving and they have these wonderful old gas street lamps, of which you can see one if you click the top picture. They are always lit (we discovered later) but sometimes hard to see. And later on, because we went to Wellsboro frequently, there'll be more pictures of different parts of town. It's so nicely-preserved, and we never even heard of it, and stumbled there entirely by accident because of Johnny's rental cabin ad. This is the kind of thing that makes travel so wonderfully entertaining and enlightening. Everyone ought to do more of it.
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