Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Failed: road trip

The planned road trip to Charlotte N.C. did not happen as intended.

Da boy and I woke up at 4 a.m. so that we can be on the road by 6. That we accomplished.

We ran into freezing rain 5 mins into our drive, it came *splat splat splat* down the windshield, but we continue to crawl on doing only 45mph on I44 heading to I64.

Right past Scott AFB it got worst. We saw cars after cars flipped or spun off on the side of the interstate. At one point, there was even a pickup truck that was at a complete standstill in the middle of I64, the traffic had to swerve to avoid hitting it.

Da boy drove even slower.

Finally we exited at Lake Carlyle and pulled up at a McD to rest our nerves and to wait things out. Applying brakes was futile, I can just hear the ABS forcing the wheel to go *thunk thunk thunk*. And the McD parking lot was a sheer sheet of ice.

After a hearty but unhealthy breakfast and almost 1 hour later, we got back on I64. We both made a joint decision to abandon this road trip - the radar shows all PINK (ice/sleet) from IL to IN to KY, which are in our driving paths.

At around 10 a.m. we pulled into our garage, safe and sound. Tired. Back to square one.

Shortly after that, we saw on the news that I64 was closed at Rt 158 due to accidents. Thank god we left when we did. It would not be fun to be caught stuck in the middle of no where in IL.

On a happier note, the last minute plane tickets are real cheap now for some reason.