huney
07-19-2011, 11:06 PM
First thing you should know is that as a general rule I drive like the proverbial bat out of hell, but I am as careful as a Mother Superior. Never had either an accident or a speeding ticket in roughly half a million miles of driving over four decades. Wait! That's not quite true. I was warned for going 45 in a 25 in Cincinnati in 1981, but that's not a ticket so I guess it doesn't count.
As is my custom, I drove from Indianapolis to the Shenadoah (where my parents live) for the Fourth of July holiday weekend. We (my sister, her dog Beau, Django, and I) headed east out of Indy around 8am on Friday after a very late night celebrating my sister's 54th birthday and coincidental liberation from the tyranny of her bi-polar, refuses to take his medication, and soon-to-be ex-husband.
Just south of Columbus, Ohio during a search for a Starbucks' (I was VERY fuzzy and needed my caffeine fix!) I ran a brand new BMW off the highway and into the median. Funny, because he just punched it and got himself immediately back on the road. Must be nice to have such power under one's hood. I apologized profusely in sign language and prayed for his forgiveness. I've NEVER done anything remotely like that before so you can be sure it put the fear of God in me big-time! From there on I swore to pay better attention.
Yeah, right.
After listening to my sister's tales of trials and tribulations throughout the utterly boring trip across all of Ohio - roughly 215 miles, I missed my usual gas stop the east side of Parkersburg, WV. The dummy light came on about two minutes later. Dummy me decided turning back was silly. Surely there would be another opportunity... Thirty miles later I rolled in on what seemed like momentum alone to the Ellenboro Exxon. My tank holds 14 gallons. I put in 13.892. oops :)
After which we were safely back on the road. I thought. We were soon to discover Django's tummy REALLY doesn't like winding mountain roads like US50. On the switchbacks between Grafton and Romney - we were nearly through! - the poor thing lost his lunch. Only he hadn't had any lunch. I zipped off the road into the crook of a really big switchback shoulder (see link (http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&g=39.333388,-79.111447&ie=UTF8&t=p&msa=0&msid=216889714730986740546.00049a372813371f6f340&ll=39.333567,-79.107056&spn=0.052048,0.132093&z=14)) and washed him down from my water bottle, gave him a sip of clean water, then let him totter around until he got his legs back while Sis cleaned the carpet. We nested him in a giant towel and cranked up the A/C fan so it would blow hard on his face. That seemed to help quite a bit.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_fKIf85p1PD4/TTcfgW2WPaI/AAAAAAAAKiU/ijUfzRG5hKk/s1600/twisties.jpg
And so we continued... Coming out of Romney about 5:30p (60's children that we are - and I do LOVE driving US50!) we were listening to The Doors' Turn Out the Lights and totally jamming just as we hit a long downhill run and the traffic picked up a lot of speed. I was watching the road very carefully so I didn't notice just how much speed until I turned a sharp corner and saw - you can guess. County Mountie just pulling out from writing a ticket for some other poor soul. I looked down, obviously already having taken my foot off the gas. The speedometer was just dropping through 73mph. I said "Dear Lord". My eyes slid to the mirror just in time to see him whip round and turn on the lights. I said "Oh shit". It took me about five minutes at 40mph to find a place to pull off.
At that point the officer pulled up behind me and sauntered up to my window saying, "Ma'am? Do you know you were speeding?" I said, "Yes, sir. I do." Then I told him the little story I just mentioned above - including the "Dear Lord" and the "Oh shit". All the while Beau (aka my sister's Mad Pom) was snarling, spitting, barking, and snapping at the bars of his crate in the back seat. The officer looked in and remarked on the dog. Sis started some yappy story about what she does for a living and how she'd come to get him. She was rattling like a maniac which had me totally flummoxed. Just as the officer turned to look at her, poor miserable Django raised his head from the floor between her knees and he (the cop) said, "What's that?". I started explaining (in great detail) what a Schnoodle is. The poor guy's eyes just glazed over. After a long pause (my sister still rattling...) he said "Never hear'd a sech a thang." He then asked where we were going and when we had left Indiana. I told him - sister still rattling on... He asked for my license and registration and asked me to sit tight. I said "Yes sir!"
So we waited. While we waited, Sis asked me if this would be a good time to pull the revolver out of the glove box and ask him not to make that call... (sadly, we had watched Thelma and Louise the night before). I just about lost it and seriously considered smacking her in the teeth immediately followed by the ultimate satisfaction of chucking her dog out into the traffic - neither of which I ever got around to doing.
A few minutes later he came back to the car. He told us he was going to remind us both to be VERY CAREFUL and handed me a warning for going 75+ in a 55! I said, "Yes SIR! And Thank You Sir!!!", with my biggest and brightest smile. I pulled gently out into the road as he stopped traffic for me with his car, I set the cruise on 54mph, and kept one eye on the mirror. He followed us all the way to the county line, whereupon crossing such line my sister told me about the herbal contraband in her bag in my trunk. Oh dear.
Just as we finally got into Virginia and on US66 within "Hallelujah" range of my parents' house (we were already an hour late for dinner and my step-siblings had been there for hours!), traffic came to a screeching halt. +80mph to a dead stop in about 5 seconds. Whew! We sat there and we sat there, all the while imagining my mother's face as she held her dinner.
About 20 minutes later the traffic began to move . Slowly. Eventually we came to the site of the blockage only to find on the right side of the road a small car and about 12 of what my sister called Hondurans clustered around it. On the left was a mini-van that appeared to be in the process of being hoisted onto a wrecker. No sign of an ambulance. "Wow!", we thought, "that was lucky!". On closer examination, not so very lucky for the poor black bear that was being hoisted onto the wrecker behind the min-van.
I won't bore you with the story of the return trip and the couple on a motorcycle that blew a tire in heavy traffic on west-bound I70 just before the Indiana state line Monday evening July 4th. Scary. The girl on the back was thrown into the path of an oncoming semi-trailer. You can google it. oops, I just bored you with the story.
I think maybe I should stay home for a while.
As is my custom, I drove from Indianapolis to the Shenadoah (where my parents live) for the Fourth of July holiday weekend. We (my sister, her dog Beau, Django, and I) headed east out of Indy around 8am on Friday after a very late night celebrating my sister's 54th birthday and coincidental liberation from the tyranny of her bi-polar, refuses to take his medication, and soon-to-be ex-husband.
Just south of Columbus, Ohio during a search for a Starbucks' (I was VERY fuzzy and needed my caffeine fix!) I ran a brand new BMW off the highway and into the median. Funny, because he just punched it and got himself immediately back on the road. Must be nice to have such power under one's hood. I apologized profusely in sign language and prayed for his forgiveness. I've NEVER done anything remotely like that before so you can be sure it put the fear of God in me big-time! From there on I swore to pay better attention.
Yeah, right.
After listening to my sister's tales of trials and tribulations throughout the utterly boring trip across all of Ohio - roughly 215 miles, I missed my usual gas stop the east side of Parkersburg, WV. The dummy light came on about two minutes later. Dummy me decided turning back was silly. Surely there would be another opportunity... Thirty miles later I rolled in on what seemed like momentum alone to the Ellenboro Exxon. My tank holds 14 gallons. I put in 13.892. oops :)
After which we were safely back on the road. I thought. We were soon to discover Django's tummy REALLY doesn't like winding mountain roads like US50. On the switchbacks between Grafton and Romney - we were nearly through! - the poor thing lost his lunch. Only he hadn't had any lunch. I zipped off the road into the crook of a really big switchback shoulder (see link (http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&g=39.333388,-79.111447&ie=UTF8&t=p&msa=0&msid=216889714730986740546.00049a372813371f6f340&ll=39.333567,-79.107056&spn=0.052048,0.132093&z=14)) and washed him down from my water bottle, gave him a sip of clean water, then let him totter around until he got his legs back while Sis cleaned the carpet. We nested him in a giant towel and cranked up the A/C fan so it would blow hard on his face. That seemed to help quite a bit.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_fKIf85p1PD4/TTcfgW2WPaI/AAAAAAAAKiU/ijUfzRG5hKk/s1600/twisties.jpg
And so we continued... Coming out of Romney about 5:30p (60's children that we are - and I do LOVE driving US50!) we were listening to The Doors' Turn Out the Lights and totally jamming just as we hit a long downhill run and the traffic picked up a lot of speed. I was watching the road very carefully so I didn't notice just how much speed until I turned a sharp corner and saw - you can guess. County Mountie just pulling out from writing a ticket for some other poor soul. I looked down, obviously already having taken my foot off the gas. The speedometer was just dropping through 73mph. I said "Dear Lord". My eyes slid to the mirror just in time to see him whip round and turn on the lights. I said "Oh shit". It took me about five minutes at 40mph to find a place to pull off.
At that point the officer pulled up behind me and sauntered up to my window saying, "Ma'am? Do you know you were speeding?" I said, "Yes, sir. I do." Then I told him the little story I just mentioned above - including the "Dear Lord" and the "Oh shit". All the while Beau (aka my sister's Mad Pom) was snarling, spitting, barking, and snapping at the bars of his crate in the back seat. The officer looked in and remarked on the dog. Sis started some yappy story about what she does for a living and how she'd come to get him. She was rattling like a maniac which had me totally flummoxed. Just as the officer turned to look at her, poor miserable Django raised his head from the floor between her knees and he (the cop) said, "What's that?". I started explaining (in great detail) what a Schnoodle is. The poor guy's eyes just glazed over. After a long pause (my sister still rattling...) he said "Never hear'd a sech a thang." He then asked where we were going and when we had left Indiana. I told him - sister still rattling on... He asked for my license and registration and asked me to sit tight. I said "Yes sir!"
So we waited. While we waited, Sis asked me if this would be a good time to pull the revolver out of the glove box and ask him not to make that call... (sadly, we had watched Thelma and Louise the night before). I just about lost it and seriously considered smacking her in the teeth immediately followed by the ultimate satisfaction of chucking her dog out into the traffic - neither of which I ever got around to doing.
A few minutes later he came back to the car. He told us he was going to remind us both to be VERY CAREFUL and handed me a warning for going 75+ in a 55! I said, "Yes SIR! And Thank You Sir!!!", with my biggest and brightest smile. I pulled gently out into the road as he stopped traffic for me with his car, I set the cruise on 54mph, and kept one eye on the mirror. He followed us all the way to the county line, whereupon crossing such line my sister told me about the herbal contraband in her bag in my trunk. Oh dear.
Just as we finally got into Virginia and on US66 within "Hallelujah" range of my parents' house (we were already an hour late for dinner and my step-siblings had been there for hours!), traffic came to a screeching halt. +80mph to a dead stop in about 5 seconds. Whew! We sat there and we sat there, all the while imagining my mother's face as she held her dinner.
About 20 minutes later the traffic began to move . Slowly. Eventually we came to the site of the blockage only to find on the right side of the road a small car and about 12 of what my sister called Hondurans clustered around it. On the left was a mini-van that appeared to be in the process of being hoisted onto a wrecker. No sign of an ambulance. "Wow!", we thought, "that was lucky!". On closer examination, not so very lucky for the poor black bear that was being hoisted onto the wrecker behind the min-van.
I won't bore you with the story of the return trip and the couple on a motorcycle that blew a tire in heavy traffic on west-bound I70 just before the Indiana state line Monday evening July 4th. Scary. The girl on the back was thrown into the path of an oncoming semi-trailer. You can google it. oops, I just bored you with the story.
I think maybe I should stay home for a while.