I stopped at my favorite gas station at 3:15 this morning to get a cup of coffee.<\/p>\n
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The man behind the counter looked at me inquisitively but didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ask. I could tell he wondered what in the world was I doing up that time of morning. He usually sees me a few minutes before eight o\u00e2\u20ac\u2122clock getting an occasional java as I head to work. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t offer an explanation but the coffee was really good and I needed it.
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\n<\/p>\n
After all, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go to bed last night till after 11.<\/p>\n
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So why was I up that time of morning, you ask?<\/p>\n
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I had some friends who were on their way to Costa Rica this morning. They will be gone of 12 days and I offered to drive them to the airport.<\/p>\n
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They had to be there at the ticket counter a little after four. Since they lived in Forest Acres and I live in Irmo, it would take me 30 minutes to get to their place and another 30 minutes to get to the airport from there.<\/p>\n
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At least that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what I thought.<\/p>\n
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However, driving the speed limit, it took much less time both ways\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6even stopping to get a cup of coffee.<\/p>\n
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Have you ever driven through Columbia in the early morning hours?<\/p>\n
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It is amazing how few of the many traffic lights are red at night. I literally had to stop for two red lights and the rest were green. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a speeders paradise BUT not something you want to be tempted to do\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6especially that time of morning.<\/p>\n
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There were few cars on those roads. 126 had two drivers other than me the whole way in. Downtown was just the same\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6except for the one SUV that had been pulled over by a city policeman. There were three other patrol cars with that one traffic stop. I suspect they were all there because there were no other calls.<\/p>\n
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Once I picked my friends up and traveled back through town to the airport it was just as quiet.<\/p>\n
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I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never seen the city so serene. It was almost like time stood still\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6and it was a beautiful site.<\/p>\n
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Even the interstate had a different flavor at that time of morning.<\/p>\n
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My wish for you today<\/strong> is that you take a closer look at the city and how beautiful it is. We are often so busy getting from one place to the other that we forget to look at our surroundings to see just how fortunate we are to live here. Be aware of where you are and who is around you \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but savor the blessings we have at living in such a lovely place.<\/p>\n \n ~ Joellen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I stopped at my favorite gas station at 3:15 this morning to get a cup of coffee. The man behind the counter looked at me inquisitively but didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ask. I could tell he wondered what in the world was I doing up that time of morning. He usually sees me a few minutes before eight […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-events","category-living-life-to-the-fullest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reflectionsfromacountrygirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}