DAYTON, Ohio – Generally speaking, it’s a bad thing to be sitting on a highway with the gear selector in park and the emergency brake tugged on.
That’s where I was today for about half an hour, sitting on the I-70, about 80 miles west of Indianapolis. There is some kind of work project on the highway in that area and all of us were stopped cold. Eventually we got going, stop and going, back to near normal speed and then stopped again. Finally it all started moving again but I spent close to an hour moving less than four miles.
I talked to my wife and daughter by cellphone, left a message for my son and drank a soda. I figured the cell phone calls were okay since nobody was moving. There was no distracted driving because there was no driving. It was hot and, after a while, I turned the air conditioning off and dropped the windows.
Earlier in the day I drove through St. Louis at a record slow speed, but I didn’t mind. This is the city where my Rams went after they jilted me decades ago. I’ve never been bitter about the Rams leaving California, just sad. Anyway, the traffic snarl took me by the Edward Jones Dome (where the Rams play) and by Gateway International Raceway (where the cars race).
Then I drove toward my appointment with the mess near the Illinois/Indiana line.
When I finally aimed myself toward Ohio, I saw dark clouds and fiddled with the radio. There was a severe weather warning for thunderstorms and about the time I heard the news, I saw a terrific bolt of lightning zap down from the sky. It was pouring when I got here and I was soaked just going to check into the hotel.
I have a funny story about Dayton. I was supposed to be flying to Daytona Beach, Florida., to work the 24-hour sports car race there about eight years ago and I booked my flights through a travel agent. I noticed the plane ticket (remember those?) had the letters DAYTON spread across the ticket with two or three spaces between the letters and figured the printer ran out of space for the letters A BEACH. When I reach Atlanta, I discovered the travel agent had actually booked me to fly to Dayton, Ohio.
The airline offered to rebook my flight for just $2,100. I called the travel agency, got my agent and she booked the flight to Daytona Beach for $210 (she paid for it herself) while I argued with the Delta guy. He was unhappy about printing my new ticket for me, but he had to eventually when my name showed up on the passenger list for a flight headed for DaytonA BEACH, FLORIDA.
I had a lengthy layover and it was during those hours that I saw a 2-woman food fight in the airline terminal food court. The final word on this story: Spaghetti.
Tomorrow is the final day of this trip. I’ll reach Odenton, Maryland in the late afternoon and probably catch up on my sleep. I get to see my son and his wife on Sunday, a good day for all of us. My daughter picks up her car Monday night and I fly back home on Tuesday.
With or without food fights.
No stats tonight because I don’t want to get my paperwork wet. I left it in the car due to the rain. I did notice that I’ve gone over the 2,000-mile mark for the trip.
Thanks for reading.
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