"It all started with a watermelon," I explain to my son, as he hooks one end of the log-chain up to his truck and the other end to the bashed-in, upper corner of our motor home.

"And it was just a small building, really," says my traveling buddy, Thelma (and owner of the motor home.)

But perhaps I should back up a bit before I explain all that.

You see, "Thelma and Louise" (my collaborative partner and I) have taken to the road again on "The Great Charleston Chase."

When that happens, you never know what adventures each new day might bring.

Thelma and I haven't taken to the roads in over six years, after we ended our last mis-adventure with a gas station hold-up in an attempt to expedite a sheriff's deputy to the scene a bit more quickly than his pokey pace was bringing him. (I had locked the keys inside my pick-up truck and we'd already waited over 45 minutes for him to arrive and break in to retrieve those keys.)

You'll be happy to know that we did not end up in the whoosegow over that incident, but we weren't allowed back on the road together, either -- until now.

And here we are, on our first day out, encountering more than our share of adventure for this trip already (as well as encountering the overhang of a building in Kingsport, Tennessee -- but more about that in a minute.)

We're on a quest to Charleston, South Carolina to find The Bently House, Grandmother's Plantation, and any other pertinent, historical information that will help us in laying out our next novel in "The Hearthstone Series." So this is NOT a pleasure trip, as such: we're on the job.

We're also much more aware of low-hanging buildings, too, after our little "run-in" here in Tennessee.

See, Thelma wanted a watermelon. And when we finally found a fruit stand along the road and managed to bring our rig to a halt in time to turn into the "tiny" driveway, it was too late to avoid the building right next door.

So we spent our first night out, standing in the dark holding flashlights for my mechanically-talented son, who conveniently lives at the half-way point of our trip, and who has bailed his mother out of another pickle -- this time with log chain and several rolls of duct tape.

Wouldn't you know, we left home without any!

Now, as we ready to head out on day number two of our adventure, it's pouring down rain, so our duct-tape fix-up will get a good testing as we continue on our way to Charleston.

(By the way, we're saving the seeds of that watermelon; they're definitely valued close to the price of gold bouillon.)

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