Well I made it out of Arkansas alive, sort of. For the most part.
I took the following photo about 20 minutes before I hightailed it out of there to "beat the weather" back to Omaha.
The calm before the stormy drive. Me as myself in front of DeGray Lake.
Well, as I sit here at the Flying J Truckstop in Joplin, MO, you've probably surmised that the weather beat me. It's been a white knuckle ride up MO State Highway 71 (the route recommended by Mapquest) Listening to the local talk radio station on the way up I was persuaded to stop since the Joplin Sherrif, State Police, and possibly President Bush have declared Joplin a snow-packed nightmare worthy of a Stephen King novel. So I pulled over since: A) I have no weight/ballast in the back of the truck to aid with traction, B) It's NOT MY TRUCK, therefore complicating any potential fender benders, and C) I've been downing Starbucks canned cappuccino double shots on the quarter hour since 9 am so I would stay awake. Now I'm wired like Whitney Houston jonesing for a fix and another few minutes behind the wheel would've made my head explode.
So I thought I'd eat my first real (non-gas station processed) food of the day, a steak salad that's surprisingly decent and reasonably priced, while hopefully the sand trucks and plows are out making the 300+ remaining miles I have to get home traversable.
Sadly, this doesn't look that much better in real life, but it beats the hell out of the Fritos I had earlier.
I called Monty a while ago to keep from freaking out in the truck and it was a strange mix of calming and upsetting. Calming to joke with a kindred spirit, upsetting because he looked at the weather map while we were on the phone and said that the shit was actually hitting the fan BEYOND Joplin. As it was I was guessing where the road was.
So anyway, I bought the $5 worth of 24 hours of Flying J internet, but hopefully I won't need much more than a couple hours of it.
In the words of John Lithgow as the deranged Dr. Emilio Lizardo in the classic cult film Buckaroo Banzai, "I feel-a so break up, I wanna go home!"
Dammit.
P.S. Watch out for the steak salad. Medium rare apparently means uncooked in the middle.
Hugs.
Marvy
1 comment:
I hope you returned safe and sound from your adventures with Love Bug Candles, Marv.
BTW, I would've signed up earlier and without the guilt-trip had any of the invitations you sent to my hotmail account shown up in my hotmail account =)
In typical Sagittarius fashion, signing up was on my list of things to do that remain undone until I am finished painting, writing, or playing the lyre ... or firing arrows at Artemis because I believe this will cause her to have sex with me.
Love YOU,
Matt
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