GAFilk: Beat the Blizzard!
Jan. 12th, 2009 11:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
billroperWe set out for home at 9:15 AM this morning. Mapquest quotes this as an approximately 12 hour trip -- with two kids and necessary stops, I would have been satisfied with any number less than 16 hours. :)
Things went somewhat better than that. We stopped for lunch at a Culver's in Bowling Green where I had a hot fudge sundae made with cinnamon pecan roll custard. Yum!![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
daisy_knotwise took over driving at that point and took us into Indiana. When we stopped for gas just across the Ohio River, I tuned into Chicago radio station WBBM and found that it was already snowing in Chicago -- probably tolerable -- with blizzard conditions forecast from midnight until noon the next day -- not tolerable.
bedlamhouse had offered to let us stay with them again if necessary, but we figured we could probably make it home ok. As I told Gretchen, "If we can make it to Merrillville, we can crawl the rest of the way home." We left Indianapolis around 7:45 PM EST after a quick dinner at Shapiro's and headed north at all deliberate speed. That became somewhat more deliberate when the snow started around Lafayette. It snowed off and on until we got about fifteen miles south of Merrillville, by which point accumulating snow was making driving much more interesting. I managed to miss the SUV that had slid into the guardrail sideways blocking the left lane (which was where I was at right then). We saw a number of cars in ditches and some nasty looking wrecks.
As we headed north on the Tri-State Tollway, conditions improved to wet and a bit slick. That was after we passed another crash that blocked two lanes of the tollway. *sigh* It didn't look like anyone was hurt, fortunately.
Other than a game of lane control tag with a Forward Air semi that kept trying to run me over in the last three miles on the tollway -- and then he cut me off at the last second to get off at my exit and again when we were trying to turn onto Higgins! -- the remainder of the trip was uneventful.
Total trip time was 14.5 hours. It would have been a bit less if it hadn't snowed.
I'll take it. :)
And the girls are happy to be home.
So are Mommy and Daddy.
Things went somewhat better than that. We stopped for lunch at a Culver's in Bowling Green where I had a hot fudge sundae made with cinnamon pecan roll custard. Yum!
daisy_knotwise took over driving at that point and took us into Indiana. When we stopped for gas just across the Ohio River, I tuned into Chicago radio station WBBM and found that it was already snowing in Chicago -- probably tolerable -- with blizzard conditions forecast from midnight until noon the next day -- not tolerable.bedlamhouse had offered to let us stay with them again if necessary, but we figured we could probably make it home ok. As I told Gretchen, "If we can make it to Merrillville, we can crawl the rest of the way home." We left Indianapolis around 7:45 PM EST after a quick dinner at Shapiro's and headed north at all deliberate speed. That became somewhat more deliberate when the snow started around Lafayette. It snowed off and on until we got about fifteen miles south of Merrillville, by which point accumulating snow was making driving much more interesting. I managed to miss the SUV that had slid into the guardrail sideways blocking the left lane (which was where I was at right then). We saw a number of cars in ditches and some nasty looking wrecks.As we headed north on the Tri-State Tollway, conditions improved to wet and a bit slick. That was after we passed another crash that blocked two lanes of the tollway. *sigh* It didn't look like anyone was hurt, fortunately.
Other than a game of lane control tag with a Forward Air semi that kept trying to run me over in the last three miles on the tollway -- and then he cut me off at the last second to get off at my exit and again when we were trying to turn onto Higgins! -- the remainder of the trip was uneventful.
Total trip time was 14.5 hours. It would have been a bit less if it hadn't snowed.
I'll take it. :)
And the girls are happy to be home.
So are Mommy and Daddy.