Life as a Highway

After two longer than necessary days of driving, I'm back in Texas. Both days should have been 8 hour drives. Both were 13+ hours. 

I never want to drive again. 

Weather apps are wonderful, but it really helps if Mother Nature checks the Internet to find out she scheduled to wait one more hour before sending thunderstorms and hail.

Protip: If you ask my friend Jane to book you a room in Illinois and specify the city... well, Don't ask my friend Jane to book you a hotel room. It will save you an 85 mile drive, through insufferable weather conditions at the end of a very long day. 

My GPS has a passive aggressive hate with Indiana and can't seem to find any normal road--like something wide enough for two cars to safely co-exist. Or, you know, the Interstate. My GPS also wants to prove there are at least three mountains and 196,794 corn fields in Indiana, and by golly, I saw every one of them. 

When pressed for directions, residents of Northwest Indiana have zero clue how to find Interstate 74. 

I hate fog, rain, hail, thunderstorms and dark, funnel clouds--low to the ground--in the Midwest heading straight towards where I'm driving. For that matter, at this moment, I'm really not a fan of the Midwest. 

N: I'm sorry I didn't make it clear I couldn't meet last Wednesday. 

J: I'm sorry I didn't call you in the last two days. Weather/traffic conditions made me focus on driving. 

Interstate 40 between Memphis and Little Rock was all 18-wheelers and one silver Rav-4 (me). There must have been some memo I missed. Because, yesterday, as a celebration of the name of the Interstate, ALL traffic--IN BOTH LANES--sped along at 40 miles an hour for 128 miles.

I spent the last hour of my drive between mile marker 6 and 1 in Arkansas, on Interstate 30 at some random backup. I opted not to take the one and only exit (at mile marker 7) that might have gotten me out of that mess, because I was so close to home. During that hour, I successfully played the alphabet game twelve times and managed to find Q, J, and Z without problems. 

The cat lost more weight. The dog gained the weight the cat lost. The dishes probably weren't done at all while I was gone. I have to go grocery shopping in an hour. But I'm so happy to see everyone, I don't care.