Road trip from hell
When we originally planned to go to Asheville for Thanksgiving (which was a great weekend, by the way), we figured we'd wait and drive home on Monday to avoid one of the worst driving days of the year. That was the plan, at least, until I realized I had to be in Baltimore on Monday night for a meeting, which meant we had to leave today after all. The revised plan: leave in the afternoon, knock out maybe 3/4 of the drive, then get up in the morning and be home relatively early on Monday.
It sounded so easy. And despite my not feeling great and it being cold and rainy this afternoon, we made great time for the first hour or so. Then, for no reason that we could ever discern, traffic came to a stop. Every now and then we'd get up to 65mph, then come to a stop again. Oh, and it was pouring rain. This probably went on for about an hour or so, then we were cruising again. But then, for probably at least four hours, we had almost constant bumper-to-bumper traffic even though we were IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. We finally decided to stop well short of where we thought we'd end up. According to Google Maps, it should have taken us four-and-a-half hours to get here, instead of the SEVEN it actually took (and that was with only one short peeing/refueling break). We're praying the three-hour drive we're facing tomorrow doesn't also become seven hours.
The only plus was that after not stopping to eat the whole way, there was a Subway in the gas station next door to the motel. Score! So I walked over there, only to find about twelve people in line and one person working (and making sandwiches is a labor-intensive effort). I gave up and ran some stuff from the car back to the room, then returned to find the line was about as long as I'd left it before. Ah, screw it. The gas station also had a mini-mart, so instead of a nice sandwich, my dinner tonight consisted of a banana, a bag of potato chips, and a Nestle Crunch chocolate bar. All was not totally lost, however--in the cooler section, they had nice little mini-boxes of wine, so as I type this in our crappy motel I'm at least able to enjoy a nice, cheap, chilled merlot in a plastic motel cup...
It sounded so easy. And despite my not feeling great and it being cold and rainy this afternoon, we made great time for the first hour or so. Then, for no reason that we could ever discern, traffic came to a stop. Every now and then we'd get up to 65mph, then come to a stop again. Oh, and it was pouring rain. This probably went on for about an hour or so, then we were cruising again. But then, for probably at least four hours, we had almost constant bumper-to-bumper traffic even though we were IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. We finally decided to stop well short of where we thought we'd end up. According to Google Maps, it should have taken us four-and-a-half hours to get here, instead of the SEVEN it actually took (and that was with only one short peeing/refueling break). We're praying the three-hour drive we're facing tomorrow doesn't also become seven hours.
The only plus was that after not stopping to eat the whole way, there was a Subway in the gas station next door to the motel. Score! So I walked over there, only to find about twelve people in line and one person working (and making sandwiches is a labor-intensive effort). I gave up and ran some stuff from the car back to the room, then returned to find the line was about as long as I'd left it before. Ah, screw it. The gas station also had a mini-mart, so instead of a nice sandwich, my dinner tonight consisted of a banana, a bag of potato chips, and a Nestle Crunch chocolate bar. All was not totally lost, however--in the cooler section, they had nice little mini-boxes of wine, so as I type this in our crappy motel I'm at least able to enjoy a nice, cheap, chilled merlot in a plastic motel cup...
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