Thursday, July 26, 2012

Mustang Marathon ends safely


                STOW, Ohio – After 2,431 miles, the Mustang and I arrived at the hotel where my wife has been ensconced this week at shortly after 11 a.m. today. The final gas mileage stats will have to come he next time I drive the car and I fill the gas tank again.

          Just too tired to write from Indianapolis, where I stayed Wednesday. The stats for Wednesday were 726 miles, using 26.2 gallons, an average of 27.7 mph. Today’s first stint netted an impressive 29.5 mpg.

          As I approached Indianapolis Wednesday I considered cancelling the hotel room in Indy and pushing on to Stow, but a long sit on the highway near Terre Haute, Indiana cured me of that idea. Traffic was snarled where the highway closes down to one road and all the truckers have to take turns letting each other in line. The driver of one car refused to close within even 100 yards of the truck in front of him WHILE WE WERE SITTING IN PLACE for better than 10 minutes. I was the second car behind him.

          Then, when traffic budged ahead a few feet, the same driver moved ahead just those few feet. When he finally, slowly pushed his way into the lane next to him, the bunch of us behind him rushed by and moved ahead before merging into the active lane.

          Later, the same idiot went by me at better than 10 mph over the speed limit, tailgating the car in front of him.

          Don’t ask me, I just report what I saw.

          Had a funny thought Wednesday: While driving through (the reader is invited to pick a state because I don’t recall which one it was), I saw signs for the town of Bourbon, (whatever state). It occurred to me that if the people of the city ever decide to rebuild the downtown area (if it needs the work, maybe the downtown area is fine. How did I get in to this?), they could call it Bourbon renewal.

          It was uproariously funny in the car by myself. Perhaps I was a little too tired.

          My co-driver, Bucky Weber, talked me through much of Wednesday’s distance and virtually all of today’s drive. He’s home in California, tending to business. But he was able to use the magic of cellular communication and the wonders of the internet to keep me appraised of road conditions ahead and weather issues. In the meantime, I used the modern marvels of hands-free phoning.

By the way, since we had time, Buck and I also determined the root of the world’s problems and worked out a simple solution. Too bad I can’t remember any of that.

When I arrived at the hotel in Stow today, I learned that Amy and I will complete the documents and close the purchase of the condo Friday. Obviously, we’re very happy.

A special note to our friend Tom Whitley: We ate lunch at a joint named Rockne’s today, sort of a sports bar. Among the images adorning the walls is one of ol’ Knute himself. The problem is that I might not go back there. The food was okay but half the stuff on the menu was named Firestone something or something with a Firestone-themed ingredient. It’s bad enough that the son of two USC grads has to eat in a Notre Dame-themed location, but I work for Goodyear. Enough is enough.

It’s raining here just now. I think I’ll stand and watch for a while. We don’t get this brand of entertainment in California.

Thanks for reading.

No comments:

Post a Comment