no parking

A lot of times on the way back to grandad's house after deer hunting at the shack, I would see cars heading back south with a deer strapped to the roof or across the trunk or even the hood. We always brought some extra rope or clothes line to tie a deer to the roof if one of us got one, but the only thing we ever came back with strapped to the roof was Christmas trees. That was usually the last major task we did before leaving the shack. Sometimes grandad would have already seen the candidate tree and remembered where it was, and we'd go right to it. Other times we'd slowly drive along the logging roads looking for a nice tree in relatively easy reach. Often we would get two trees, one for grandad and Carolyn, and one for uncle Bill and aunt JoAn, or someone else who needed a tree.
It was amusing to me to be going out for deer and coming back with trees. If someone asked, "Did you get anything?"
I might reply, "Yes, we got two." Then pause for a moment and add, "Christmas trees."
The last time I went up deer hunting with grandad, he was getting pretty old, and his driving didn't seem as good as it had previously. One thing that he did, which concerned me a little bit, was speed up any time someone tried to pass. We were on a divided highway, so it didn't really seem too dangerous, but I could tell that some of the other drivers got annoyed.
Someone would come up behind us, going a little faster than we were, and change lanes to pass, and as they came up next to us, grandad would accelerate, and unless they really sped up a lot, we'd go zooming ahead of them, only to have the same thing happen a little while later. I couldn't figure out why he was doing that. I thought maybe it was his competitive spirit, but it seemed kind of petty and a little strange. I thought if he did the same thing on a two lane road in a passing zone, it could be pretty dangerous.
I finally asked him why he kept speeding up when people tried to pass. He asked me what I was talking about. He was completely unaware that he was doing it. Maybe subconsciously when he saw a car approaching in the rear view mirror, he thought he must be going to slow and hit the accelerator. The next time someone passed, he started speeding up, and I said, "See, that guy's trying to pass, and you just sped up."
He said, "Oh," and kind of chuckled, and slowed down to let them get by. I volunteered to drive as much as possible on the rest of that trip.
It reminded me of another trip up to the shack when we got stuck behind a car which was going the same speed as a big truck in the next lane, blocking all traffic from passing. We were in a line of cars behind this guy for maybe ten minutes. I think the truck driver must have eventually noticed, because the truck slowed down until the traffic blocker had to pass him. A stream of annoyed drivers flooded past the offending car, shooting angry glances at its driver. We were no different, and we saw that it was an old man with a head of fluffy white hair. Grandad looked over at him and said derisively, "Wispy haired old fart."
I laughed and looked over at grandad, who had his wispy white hair stowed under a Sherlock Holmes style cap.
Another time when grandad was driving, on the way back, we had our trees on the top of the car, and we stopped at a truck stop for gas. I filled up the car, and paid the attendant, and got back into the car. Grandad said he wanted to go for a pee and a cup of coffee, so he drove us over to the restaurant and store part of the truck stop and parked the car out in front. We got out and went into the bathroom. I had to pee too, so we went into the bathroom at the same time. As he was finishing at the urinal, he said, "Ah, it feels good to be empty."
I had never really thought of it that way. I had always thought of having to pee, then afterwards not having to. I said, "Yeah, it does."
We went out to the store and grandad bought a cup of truck stop coffee while I headed back out to the car. On the way out to the car, I noticed how large the parking lot of the truck stop was. I also noticed that there was a single "NO PARKING" sign painted on the huge parking lot, and that grandad had parked right next to that sign. I went to the car, got my camera, and took a picture.