Sunday, December 23, 2007

Temporary lay-over

I try my best to avoid situations like this, but here I am, stuck in friend's house, the roads too slick and Icy to get home on. I should have known when I set out yesterday. It's not as if the weatherman hadn't said there would be snow. But, in my own defense, it must be said that his forecast led me to believe that all we'd get would be a light dusting of snow. I really wasn't thinking that there could be a possibility of iced roads, and apparently quite hazardous to attempt travelling on.

I'd hoped to leave at 4:00-4:30 yesterday afternoon, and I probably could have made it. But even then this mess was working it's way in...withouth going into detail I'll only say that I was in no condition to drive at that time. I wound up spending the night, with the hopes that the weather situation would clear off early this morning.

Well, it IS early in the morning as I write this. The weather guy in channel 5 talks like it's not a good idea to get out on the roads right now and that it's not looking to get better until close to noon, when temparatures rise above freezing. Even then there could be a smattering of slick spots. I cannot emphasize enough just how much I loathe driving in this kind of weather. If that weren't the case I would have taken off when I woke up this morning (I always wake up early when I stay overnight any place besides my home).

There's nothing left to do, though. It would appear that my weekend trip has been extended. From a planned 5 hour visit to a 24 hour lay-over. What a drag.

But it I take some solace in the fact that there is a computer here that I can kill time with until I get brave enough to flee. Then again, it's on one of those outmoded dial-up connections, so there's not a lot of "web-surfing" going on. Furthermore, it's a MacIntosh. I've never used one of these. Not that I'm loyal to Microsoft...I'm even tempted to trust folks when they swear that these suckers are superior in every way to PCs...but I've just not had the opportunity to sample the wares, as it were. With no one to show me the ropes I feel like a kid whose been given a nice chess board and then left without telling me the rules to the game.

But obviously I have been able to seek and find my way to Blogger.

Why do I hate these unplanned overnight stays? A lot of it is for the same reason I don't really like PLANNED overnight stays anymore. I like my own bed. I like to have access to MY stuff. I can find my way to the bathroom in the dark. I don't have to feel guilty about raiding the refrigerator. And, of course, the main reason---the obvious one---I don't like to be away from the wife and son.

But there's nothing to be done about it. I should feel lucky that the power is on. These guys went through 5 days without electricity when the ice storm was in full swing. I have come to the conclusion that we were very lucky to only be out for two days. It's been almost 2 weeks now and there are still several hundred still without lights. No doubt they are starting to get used to it. All you need to do is pretend that you're one of the early settlers staking out a land claim a couple of centuries before the advent of electricity.

We are, by those standards, spoiled indeed.

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