On Sunday we Left my folk's house around three in the afternoon after difficult goodbyes. By One AM we checked into a motel not too far from the Indiana/Illinois border.
The next day Illinois was one continual speed trap. We saw more pork during that three hour crossing than the rest of the trip combined. Fortunately between keeping my speed within five miles of the limit and using Jedi mind tricks we were able to avoid being one of the many victims of the Land of Lincoln's attempts to pad the ailing state coffers.
"~These are not the out-of-state-speeders you are looking for, move along.~"
Missouri was uneventful as it tends to be. In Kansas I let the tank get a little to low and the gas light came on with no gas stations for thirty miles on I-70 according to the iPhone. We had to make tense a nine-mile detour North to Manhattan, KS to fill the tank. I could see on the map that the quickest way back to I-70 was not the way we'd come. I quickly reviewed the map and we followed route 18, or so we thought. Soon we came to what looked like toll booths. I pulled up to one. A serious looking dude in regular-looking clothes looked at us strangely and said, "Can I help you?"
"Is this a toll road" I said stupidly.
"This is Fort Riley, a military installation."
As I recovered from my WTF moment, the dude said we could get to I-70 by going through the base, he just needed to check both our IDs.
"Californians," he said to himself, "every time."
We made our way through the other-worldliness of the base and we were on our way.
I was not looking forward to the sun setting in my eyes while driving West. I was relieved when it hid behind a solid bank of dark clouds filling much of the Western sky. The clouds became more ominous looking by the hour.
We stopped at a rest stop an hour East of Hays, Kansas. A speaker in front of the rest rooms was blurting a severe weather warning.
Have I ever mentioned that I love severe weather? As long as I'm on solid ground, I totally dig a good storm. According to recorded warning, the clouds and the map on the side of the building, we were headed straight into a doozy.
Back on the highway the clouds formed shapes I'd never witnessed before. The storm couldn't have been any more dead center in our path. I scanned the radio for a local station giving news of the weather and found one easily.
"Move to the center part of your house and stay away from windows..." He also mentioned "Winds of sixty miles-an hour," "Quarter-size hail" and "deadly lightning." Is there another kind lightning besides deadly? The variety that just kinda tickles instead of setting your hair on fire and melting your shoes... and you in them?
It seemed like we drove towards those psycho clouds forever before anything happened. Our anticipation, and anxiety grew.
Eventually a light rain dampened the windshield of our trusty rent-a-car "Fletch". A while later I could see a bank of fog on the highway.
It wasn't fog, it was the spray from a wall of heavy rain pounding the pavement.
I slowed to 55 and turned the wipers to full gale mode. I could still see road edge reflectors and the lines on the road. The rain turned from heavy to torrential. I struggled just to make out the lines on the road, often finding myself inadvertently straddling the dotted line. I slowed to 45... 40... hazards on. 35...
I saw some cars pulled off the highway under a bridge. Good idea, but there was no room at the Inn. I'll get the next bridge.
The wind slammed into the car accented by a whip of the dense gray rain. My view out of the windshield went from completely distorted to briefly slightly less distorted with each frantic slam of the wipers.
Finally I saw blinkers; cars parked under the next bridge. There was no room there either but I could not see well enough to continue, we had to stop.
I pulled in behind a pickup truck with it's hazards flashing. Our car was still exposed to the elements but it was better than nothing. At least with the bridge nearby, lightning strikes would likely connect it's circuit elsewhere.
Gusts of wind rocked our SUV with a force that made my reassurances to my traveling companion lack conviction. Can sixty-mile-an-hour winds topples an SUV? Noooo... I think. Even the cars sheltered under the bridge were getting pelted with the sideways rain. Lighting strikes got closer and closer and the thunder more deafening.
"Thee mississippi... "Two-mississippi... One-missi..."
If you can catch a picture of a lightning bolt, you know there were tons of them.
The air around us flashed bright white again and again in rapid-fire succession like God's paparazzi had caught him coming out of a deli.
After about twenty minutes of this incredible show. The deluge of rain suddenly reverted to a mere hard rain. We gave it a few more minutes before pressing on.
Rain and lightning continued for the next hour as we drove West. The rain varied from heavy to nothing at all and back again. We switched the radio to AM and tuned to an unused frequency to listen to the lonely sound of lighting static in sync with the distant flashes on the horizon.
Around ten PM we decided it was time to eat but there was nothing open in Western Kansas. A lady at a convenience store told me the nearest 24-hour restaurant was 150 miles away and in a different state.
The only decent selection of hotels was at the same exit: Limon, CO.
Two hours later we were on dry roads and well into Colorado. By that time I was using every trick in the book to stay awake. My favorite is yanking a tuft of hair from behind my knee.
We stopped at the only scariest Denny's I have ever seen. A gaggle of Colorado's finest were chatting outside before going out to hunt drunk drivers. The menu wasn't just sticky, it looked like it had been used as a plate to serve food and never washed. Our server was sweet but had a Igor-like limp and was missing more teeth that a hockey player. It was the only Denny's for three hundred miles. My brain was so fried from the day's events my caffeine crash and lack of sleep, I had trouble ordering food.
The food pepped me up just enough to write this blog in our hotel room. I had to get this down while it was still fresh.
Now I sleep!
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