Last night after I finished typing the blog, I got a call from my friend Professor Tim. We had planned to meet up in Macungie, PA today. Tim would be driving his beautifully restored 1954 Chevrolet Suburban pictured below..
Tim asked if I had heard the weather and I had not. He told me about the predictions of heavy rain and thunderstorms and tornado watches, etc. Tim told me he would not be coming to Macungie on Thursday, but would wait until early Friday to drive there from his home in New York.. Then he asked, " What are you going to do , Bill ? " Hmm, I did not really know..
After Tim hung up at 9:30 pm, I checked the weather online and it did not look good. I thought about driving in that mess or the thought of hanging in a hotel room for 24 hours until Friday arrived and neither appealed to me. I thought about heading for home and my first thought was to sleep a little then head out around 3:00 am. The more I thought about it, I realized I wouldn't do much sleeping. So I started to pack about 9:45 pm with the idea of driving all night to get home.
As I began to drive at 10:15 pm, I noticed two things. The first was the number of big trucks on the road at night. There seemed to be 10 eighteen wheelers for every one car. The other is the road construction. Paving machines, excavators, and dump trucks with huge bright lights were everywhere.
I was setting the GPS on the fly, not having planned my route in advance. No matter whether I chose the Tappan Zee or the George Washington Bridge, my arrival time was in the 7:00 am range, and that was without stops. I had a long way to go..
Eventually the states appeared in my rear view mirror. First Virginia, then Maryland and West Virginia, then Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and up and over the Tappan Zee into New York. It seemed like it took me forever to get to 84 East. I traveled 20 miles on an unlit parkway, straining to see beyond my dim head lights.
Finally I saw 84 East, then pulled into a Dunkin Donuts in Connecticut at 5:00 am, waiting for them to open the door for me.
The sun rise reflected in my hood for the only picture I took during the ride.
The commuter traffic on the Mass Pike was not as bad as I thought, and I rolled into my driveway about 7:20 am. With my dual gas tanks, I only had to stop twice for gas, and once for coffee to make the 525 mile ride. When I walked upstairs my wife told me she thought there was a burglar in the house, although the only effort she expended to check for him involved opening just one eye.
I traveled about 1650 miles this week and had a nice time riding around. It would have been fun to attend the Macungie Show but I was not up for being caught in such messy weather.. I will have to catch everyone there another time...
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