Fade to Grey (Book 1): Fade to Grey Read Free

but Max is looking at this little recorder like he’s trying to decide
if it’s a treat that I’m teasing him with. It’s like I keep holding it up to my
mouth, but I haven’t eaten it yet. Dummy. Anyway, I was going to take a little
notebook with me to kind of keep a journal of my walkabout, but as I know, my
handwriting is atrocious, and since I’m the one who most likely would have been
reading the notebook twenty years from now, or rather trying to read it, I
decided to give this little micro recorder a try instead. The cool thing about
this is that I can download these audio files to my laptop later on. On the
record quality that I’ve picked I can supposedly record over 700 hours of audio
before the internal memory gets filled. Hmmm, we’ll see about that. Anyway,
enough for now.
     
    *click*
    Well, that was quick. Reminder to self . . . look at the gas
gauge before starting a long trip. I made it to the station with probably about
four ounces of fumes in the tank. This truck has a thirty-five gallon gas tank
. . . getting pricey to fill it up. So I’m sitting here in the truck waiting
for the tank to fill. I’ve got one of those slow pumps—figures. Anyway, I’m in
the truck listening to the radio . . . I know, I know . . . you’re not supposed
to get in and out of the vehicle while it’s fueling. Anyhow, some news report
came on . . . something about a problem along the border between North and
South Korea. I didn’t catch most of it, but it said something about sporadic
exchanges of gunfire along the DMZ. Now I wasn’t a political science major, but
from what I remember reading, North Korea’s main problem is being able to feed
its people. And what does their tin pot dictator do, he starts his troops
shooting across the border or kicks out the latest nuclear weapons inspectors,
and then the U.S. tries to reason with him by giving him money and food. It’s
an endless cycle. It kind of feels like we’re enabling him . . . that we’re
teaching him that all he has to do to get food and money is to be a dick to us.
Heck with it. That’s just one more thing that I don’t have to listen to or care
about for the next forty-odd days.
     
    *click*
    All right, I’m about 120 miles into my trip now; about
another 70 to go. Of course the last few miles of that will be very slow going.
I do have the new winch installed on the front of the truck in case I have to
pull any trees out of the way, or pull myself out of the mud. There’s been the
normal amount of rain lately, and I imagine that the road up to Uncle Andy’s is
going to be a bit soupy. I think I’m going to hit some tunes for awhile. Later.
     
    *click*
    OK, this is weird. There’s not many radio stations that I can
pick up right now. Nothing out of the ordinary there, I’m just in the middle of
nowhere in North Dakota about fifty miles from the Canadian border. What’s
weird is that of the three that I know I can get most of the way up to Uncle
Andy’s, two of them are playing that repeated carrier tone and a recorded
message saying to stay tuned for an important news bulletin. The third one is just
static. My station search will lock on to it, but it’s nothing but white noise.
I hit scan again and managed to find a station that was still broadcasting, but
it was playing country music . . . old country music, real old. Well they say
ignorance is bliss, so off the radio goes. I want to stop and top off the tank
before I hit the dirt road, maybe grab a snack.
     
    *click*
    There’s nothing quite like powdered doughnuts. I just stuffed
two packs of them into my face. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to read the
ingredients label—probably about five days worth of saturated fat, but you know
what, I don’t care, I’m on vacation. Max got a Slim Jim, although they didn’t
have the regular kind and I had to get him a spicy one. I just left the last
gas station on my way up to Uncle Andy’s—the one at Sheldon’s Marina and Bait