| Thursday, November 24, 2005 |
| Back to Pennsylvania and some homemade pumpkin pie... |
I'm home at my parent's place with the entire family for the first time in about 7 years! The entire 10 years I worked at my old job, I was the "Administrator On Call" for Thanksgiving weekend. It wasn't entirely disruptive, it just meant I could never leave town on Thanksgiving unless I traded coverage with someone (like I did last year to go to London over the holiday).
Alas, despite looking forward to this 4 day break, my bad travel karma continued yesterday.....
I left work at 3:30 PM. After getting gas, picking up some wine, and wending my way over to Security Blvd., I finally got on Interstate 70 at about 4:30. From there, it normally takes me about 5 hours to drive the 300 miles across Maryland and cut up through the mountains by Altoona, and then across to Northwest PA and home.
Normally.
I-70 was a parking lot from Baltimore to Frederick. Past the I-270 split, it got a little better for a while, but we quickly slowed to less than 50 mph. The closer we got to Breezewood, the worse the traffic got. Not having any desire to spend 45 minutes trying to cut through Breezewood and battle what was surely even more traffic on the PA Turnpike, I continued on I-68 to Rocky Gap and cut up Rt. 220 through Bedford. It added about 20 miles to the trip, but I was finally making decent time.
Until I hit the raccoon. Head on. Sixty miles an hour with the front end of the BMW. Poor thing never knew what hit him, and I did not see him until he was directly in front of me. Dark night, winding country road....wrong place, wrong time. Even with the BMW's steerable headlamps, it was unavoidable. After the raccoon, I was paranoid beyond measure about hitting a deer (especially after passing a half dozen carcasses on the road), so I slowed down considerably, but was still making better time than I had been since leaving Baltimore.
As soon as I turned left to cut across the mountains at Altoona, onto Route 22 and 422 - the snow started. They were predicting 5 inches, but I had hoped it would start later in the evening, and what I didn't count on were the extremely high winds and near white out conditions. I couldn't see a thing - not even the road. I put my hazard lights on and crawled along with everyone else at about 25-30 miles per hour for remainder of the trip. The snow and wind were unrelenting, and I had to take some back roads which were unplowed, unsalted, and drifted over. White knuckles all the way. I thought about pulling off and getting a motel room, but the weather today is even worse, so I'm glad I eventually made it home in one piece. I was very glad to be driving an all wheel dirve, heavy German car - I didn't slide or fishtail once, but I passed plenty of cars off the road and in the ditch.
Nearly eight hours after I left Baltimore - I finally got home just before 11:15 PM. My trip computer noted that my average speed over the entire 300 miles, was only 41 miles per hour.
To add insult to injury, I woke up and saw that I had slept until 9:20 - woot! I slept well, and that's the latest I've slept in months. I wandered out to the kitchen to find Mom making berry smoothies and coffee, and wondered why no one else was up. "You're up early", she said. I looked at the kitchen clock, and yep - you guessed it. 8:30. The guest room alarm hadn't been set to daylight savings time....
Oh well. Hope you and yours are thankful for all the positive things in your life, and enjoy the day with your families, friends, and loved ones.
I think there is some night time sled riding on the agenda this evening with the neices and nephews.... |
posted by Broadsheet @ 11:30 AM   |
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| 4 Editorial Opinions: |
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Happy Thanksgiving, Leeeenda. I'm glad you made it home to your family safe.
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Any racoon travelling at 60mph deserves all it gets!
Campbell
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Did you stop? or was it a hit and run? you know that karma thing will get you....
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E - It was a hit and run. There were ditches on either side of the road, and it was in the middle of the woods. There was nowhere to slow down or pull over. I creamed the poor thing. It was still there when I drove home on Sunday.....
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Happy Thanksgiving, Leeeenda. I'm glad you made it home to your family safe.