cincibuck
You kids stay off my lawn!
It's been a downer of a week. Over the last few days the news came of the death of a fraternity/scummie brother, a grade school through high school classmate and friend, a fellow Viet Vet and my brother-in-law's mother.
It's depressing, a realization that I am of that age where the funerals greatly outnumber the graduations, weddings, christenings and divorce celebrations on my social slate.
But duty calls and so yesterday I took off for Willard, Ohio to help my brother-in-law bury his mom. Ken, a Korean War Tin-Can Silor, and I have been making the yearly trek to DC for Veterans Day most of the last 20 years and we meet for lunch most Tuesdays. So, depressed or not, I wanted to be there.
Took off at seven and made great time and was well on my way to being early when I made a wrong turn off of a roundabout in Lodi and ended up in Litchfield. I'd been to Litchfield, England, Samuel Johnson's birthplace. Neat, charming little place. Litchfield, Ohio however... no, I'm not going there. Let's just say it wasn't on my itinerary and won't be in the future.
In the process I lost an hour and a half trying to get my ship righted and sailing in the correct direction. I did manage to make it in time for the service and then begged off to begin the return trip, hoping to beat the predicted snow storm that was about to descend upon southern Ohio. That was 1:15.
I now knew my way and did not bother to retrace my errant steps to Litchfield. Before 2PM I was on I-71 and rolling along at 75 MPH, until I hit Columbus. Made it through there at a reasonable pace. Only a flake or two had fallen from the sky, but at the southern exit from Columbus the highway became choked with traffic. Still, I'm mostly in the left lane, doing 75 again, cloudy, but no snow, it's only 3:30 and I'm thinking I'll be home by 5:30 -6.
A combination of factors intervened:
1) The snow came on sudden and at full throttle. In minutes the roads were covered and the temp was hovering at 28 -not warm enough to melt, not cold enough to freeze.
2) Double witching, some damn fool had booked Valentine's Day and President's Day on the same weekend. Everyone who could duck out of work early had done so. The snow hit at 3:30 so throw in a bunch of 3-day vacationers jacked up on getting-away-fever to the already busy roadway.
3) The traffic came to a screeching halt. A truck jack-knifed at Exit 72 - I need to get to Exit 12- and I didn't realize I was charging into what was already a four mile long accident delay until I was in a "no-where-to-turn-around-or-exit" spot about 2 - 3 miles beyond the Washington Court House exit.
4) After a 30 minute wait, a snow plow went by, clearing the left shoulder as he went through. This caused the a**hole factor to kick in and people began to use the shoulders on both sides of the highway - on a stretch where the highway is 3 lanes wide on each side. So now we have gone from three lanes of traffic reaching back to infinity, to five. Oh boy.
5) Emergency vehicles and tow trucks can't get through because of the a**holes who have clogged the shoulders.
6) A second accident by the exit at mile fifty something begins being reported on the radio.
7) After more than an hour's delay the road finally is cleared and the traffic begins to flow out. After two or three miles of creeping at 15 to 20 MPH the cork seems to pop out of the bottleneck and we're rolling along at 40 MPH, but now a**hole cowboys in trucks are tailgating people and trying to intimidate them to move over.
The intimidated are refusing to move over because:
8) The high speed lane was the only one treated due to 4,5,6,7 above, keeping the ODOT trucks from doing their job.
9) A**holes in SUVs begin imitating truck drivers.
Which leads to:
10) A third wreck involving a semi rear ending a Chevy Cavalier on the Little Miami bridge above Lebanon.
10A) the bridge is under repair and lined with orange barrels on both sides.
10B) which means there's no shoulder for the truck and Cavalier to pull out of the line of traffic.
10C) I recognize the truck as one which had been tailgating me earlier. A**hole.
To which we add:
11) My decision to get off at Cross County, Exit 12, instead of taking 275 -Exit 15- around the city and getting off at Beechmont. I'm thinking that surely the hoity-toity's in Montgomery, Indian Hill and Madeira will have their streets treated - WRONG. Crept through Madeira only to get stopped on first two tries to get up the hill just past the railroad station. Regret trading in Audi A6. Pulled into a Walgreen's to decide if I needed to retreat back to 71 or make another run. Made third attempt using the center of the street, where traffic had thinned the snow, and just barely made it, ignoring a red light to keep momentum up.
12) Used engine braking feature - the only good bad-weather feature on a Prius- to get down Muchmore Rd. Once I turned onto Newtown Rd. the streets were well treated and I had no problems for the last three miles of the journey.
13) It wasn't until 9:40 that I at last crossed the threshold of 2529 Concordgreen. Gladly kissed the wife. Grabbed two small cubes and poured myself 3 full fingers of Glenmorangie to calm road jitters and bring color back to white knuckles.
14) Slept like a baby until 8 this morning.
15. Awoke to a beautiful world outside.
It's depressing, a realization that I am of that age where the funerals greatly outnumber the graduations, weddings, christenings and divorce celebrations on my social slate.
But duty calls and so yesterday I took off for Willard, Ohio to help my brother-in-law bury his mom. Ken, a Korean War Tin-Can Silor, and I have been making the yearly trek to DC for Veterans Day most of the last 20 years and we meet for lunch most Tuesdays. So, depressed or not, I wanted to be there.
Took off at seven and made great time and was well on my way to being early when I made a wrong turn off of a roundabout in Lodi and ended up in Litchfield. I'd been to Litchfield, England, Samuel Johnson's birthplace. Neat, charming little place. Litchfield, Ohio however... no, I'm not going there. Let's just say it wasn't on my itinerary and won't be in the future.
In the process I lost an hour and a half trying to get my ship righted and sailing in the correct direction. I did manage to make it in time for the service and then begged off to begin the return trip, hoping to beat the predicted snow storm that was about to descend upon southern Ohio. That was 1:15.
I now knew my way and did not bother to retrace my errant steps to Litchfield. Before 2PM I was on I-71 and rolling along at 75 MPH, until I hit Columbus. Made it through there at a reasonable pace. Only a flake or two had fallen from the sky, but at the southern exit from Columbus the highway became choked with traffic. Still, I'm mostly in the left lane, doing 75 again, cloudy, but no snow, it's only 3:30 and I'm thinking I'll be home by 5:30 -6.
A combination of factors intervened:
1) The snow came on sudden and at full throttle. In minutes the roads were covered and the temp was hovering at 28 -not warm enough to melt, not cold enough to freeze.
2) Double witching, some damn fool had booked Valentine's Day and President's Day on the same weekend. Everyone who could duck out of work early had done so. The snow hit at 3:30 so throw in a bunch of 3-day vacationers jacked up on getting-away-fever to the already busy roadway.
3) The traffic came to a screeching halt. A truck jack-knifed at Exit 72 - I need to get to Exit 12- and I didn't realize I was charging into what was already a four mile long accident delay until I was in a "no-where-to-turn-around-or-exit" spot about 2 - 3 miles beyond the Washington Court House exit.
4) After a 30 minute wait, a snow plow went by, clearing the left shoulder as he went through. This caused the a**hole factor to kick in and people began to use the shoulders on both sides of the highway - on a stretch where the highway is 3 lanes wide on each side. So now we have gone from three lanes of traffic reaching back to infinity, to five. Oh boy.
5) Emergency vehicles and tow trucks can't get through because of the a**holes who have clogged the shoulders.
6) A second accident by the exit at mile fifty something begins being reported on the radio.
7) After more than an hour's delay the road finally is cleared and the traffic begins to flow out. After two or three miles of creeping at 15 to 20 MPH the cork seems to pop out of the bottleneck and we're rolling along at 40 MPH, but now a**hole cowboys in trucks are tailgating people and trying to intimidate them to move over.
The intimidated are refusing to move over because:
8) The high speed lane was the only one treated due to 4,5,6,7 above, keeping the ODOT trucks from doing their job.
9) A**holes in SUVs begin imitating truck drivers.
Which leads to:
10) A third wreck involving a semi rear ending a Chevy Cavalier on the Little Miami bridge above Lebanon.
10A) the bridge is under repair and lined with orange barrels on both sides.
10B) which means there's no shoulder for the truck and Cavalier to pull out of the line of traffic.
10C) I recognize the truck as one which had been tailgating me earlier. A**hole.
To which we add:
11) My decision to get off at Cross County, Exit 12, instead of taking 275 -Exit 15- around the city and getting off at Beechmont. I'm thinking that surely the hoity-toity's in Montgomery, Indian Hill and Madeira will have their streets treated - WRONG. Crept through Madeira only to get stopped on first two tries to get up the hill just past the railroad station. Regret trading in Audi A6. Pulled into a Walgreen's to decide if I needed to retreat back to 71 or make another run. Made third attempt using the center of the street, where traffic had thinned the snow, and just barely made it, ignoring a red light to keep momentum up.
12) Used engine braking feature - the only good bad-weather feature on a Prius- to get down Muchmore Rd. Once I turned onto Newtown Rd. the streets were well treated and I had no problems for the last three miles of the journey.
13) It wasn't until 9:40 that I at last crossed the threshold of 2529 Concordgreen. Gladly kissed the wife. Grabbed two small cubes and poured myself 3 full fingers of Glenmorangie to calm road jitters and bring color back to white knuckles.
14) Slept like a baby until 8 this morning.
15. Awoke to a beautiful world outside.
