They Say You Can Never Go Home...You Just Need a Chevy BMF!

We land after a long redeye back in Sarasota, and rent our car (Kathy's had died earlier in the trip so we junked it...earlier post).

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We drove to the condo, loaded up our gear, and hit the road. The drive was to turn out to be a horrendous one. First, a semi drops an entire load of roofing trusses not more than 5 cars in front of us on the freeway. Cars veer every which way, and we miss the wood by just a couple of feet. The weather keeps getting worse and worse, and now they are noting tornadoes near Jacksonville, 10 miles away. The GPS (now named Nancy, given her ability to yell at me for hours on end with no decrease in volume) routes us off the freeway for a major short-cut; it turns out to be a bad one, as the rain and wind increases to hurricane intensity, trees are down all over the roads, several feet deep puddles appear from nowhere, and cars are strewn like matchsticks. The truck above jacknifed just 1/4 mile ahead of us, and would have gone directly into a house had it not hit that tree first head-on.

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We made Charlotte the first evening and bedded down. When we awoke and got on the road, a snowstorm started in earnest. I went to use the wipers, and, low and behold, the washer reservoir was frozen solid. Seems that in Florida they just fill the reservoir with water, not anti-freeze wiper fluid. A quick desperate call showed that the nearest car trade-in spot was 80 miles away. So we drove, 30mph on the freeway, in a snowstorm, through West Virginia's mountains, for nearly 3 hours to trade the car in. Not a fun afternoon.

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We trade the car, and the only 4x4 the have available is a chevy BMF (you figure it out). The beast was HUGE; how huge we did not appreciate until we filled the tank for the first time 70 miles and $70 later. 3 rounds of that and we were finally home. What a pig...who can afford to drive these things?

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Anyhow, we finally made it home safely, and got mom's wake taken care of (earlier post). We're going to spend some time here at home to regroup, plan our our next round of trips, and get the body and spirit back in shape.

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"Hangin' around Home" Lumpy out