Many of you already know that I made the decision Thursday to head for Michigan on Friday and here I am. Carrying on the weather pox tradition, I wreaked havok on Central Florida and then rushed to Michigan to help usher in the coldest weather of the season. On the way I took a small detour to visit some friends in Mississippi.
Although I consider myself to be a good navigator, I was thinking their house was less than an hour away from I-65 and wouldn’t be much out of the way. As it turned out it was two and a half hours over and two and a half hours back. Thank you, Ruth and Bud, for some great conversation, a chance to catch up on each others’ lives, and great food. It’s surprising how far fat people will drive for a free meal!
On the way to the motel that night, I got almost there when the freeway came to a standstill. By then it was 11:15 Eastern time and I still had twenty miles to go. I was about the twentieth car back from the bright lights and police cars. After about twenty minutes (stuck on twenties…twenty miles, twentieth car, twenty minutes…interesting)  we started going very slowly in single file. I saw, in the middle of the road, a CJ series Jeep that looked like it had already gone through the compacting machine at the junk yard and someone in the ambulance that was covered up. It looked like a tornado had hit the area with clothes, plastic bags, paper and boxes strewn all over the place. As I went through I pondered how most of the people that had waited in line were probably still ticked because they were held up for a few minutes, and someone’s family was going to have to come to Alabama and literally pick up the pieces. It makes a little discomfort seem unimportant.
The drive on Saturday from Athens, Alabama to Hastings was stressful. From about Nashville on I had to hold the steering wheel tightly with both hands to keep the car on the road. The wind was very strong coming from my left. In one case a truck, just a short distance ahead of me, got blown off the road and into a ditch. The driver hadn’t gotten out yet and a police car was just pulling up. I told Jean that when she called I wouldn’t answer ‘cuz it would be too dangerous and I would return the call when I stopped for gas or food.
I told Jean, when I got home, that she would not have done well traveling. After starting out at 5:30 AM Central time, I stopped for 20 minutes for breakfast at a Waffle House, 10 minutes three times for gas and a bathroom break (that’s gasoline, not a bathroom break with gas), 20 minutes for lunch at a McDonalds, and that’s it. 70 minutes of down time on an 11 hour drive. The last hour and a half was white-out conditions and snow covered roads.
I figured Jean and I would be the only ones to show up at Sam and Colleen’s for this morning’s run and brunch. Apparently someone left the door unlocked at the looney bin and there were about 15 of us. With temps at the 3 or 4 below zero mark and wind chills in the teens below zero, it was surprising that no one seemed to have frostbite. We voted to see if Dr. Joe Seeling from Barry County Mental Health would want to join our group and do counselling while running.qhhcdaawtwjplgrlslcfwrwneqhhcdaawtwjplgrlslcfwrwne.
As I sat here reading the last paragraph, the last word that you see just popped up from nowhere. How did that happen? I wasn’t touching any of the keys. Maybe it’s the 57 degree temperature in here that’s making the computer sick!
Better go. The Super Bowl will be on in a couple of hours and I want to be sure to get a front row seat.
Just (Glad To Be Back!!????) Jack