I Am The Road Warrior
Maybe I missed my calling to be a long haul trucker. Thursday and Friday I was on the road - Chicago to Baltimore on Thursday, Baltimore to Chicago on Friday - and truth be told, it wasn't all that bad. I'm a bit tired, but no more so than after a late night gaming session.
I went to help a friend of mine, who had to get a car to Baltimore at the last minute, so it could be put on a ship to Europe. While probably not the sanest plan in the world, instead of paying last minute airfare to get back home, we took two cars to Baltimore and drove together on the way back.
When I left, I decided to put myself completely in the digitized hands of the car's navigation system (his car - not mine). What neither of us realized was that the navigation system was set to not use toll roads which put my route a bit off the beaten path. It was a great mistake as the scenic route took me into some parts of the country I'd never been to, mainly West Virginia and Western Maryland. After a few hours of driving through a blizzard in the mountains, I called it quits after 13 hours of driving outside of Cumberland, Maryland.
My friend didn't leave Chicago until after 8 pm. He drove all night to get to the Baltimore docks in the morning where we eventually met up. The port terminal was an awe inspiring picture of globalization at work. Lots full of Japanese, Korean, Swedish and German cars and more American made tractors, combines, earth movers and cranes then I had ever seen in one place. You forget how much stuff is still made here until you yards full of all this heavy equipment.
We had originally planned on staying in Baltimore for a little while to check out Chesapeake Bay and the ships before heading home. We changed our minds after getting flash-frozen by the strong winds coming in from the ocean and my friend was starting to show the ill-effects of staying up for 30 straight hours. So we finished our business and headed home. I ended up driving the entire stretch back to Chicago myself because the closer we got to home, the more my friend looked like an extra in a George Romero movie. After dropping him off in the city and getting my car, I made it home around 1:45 a.m.
I'm glad to be back and feeling empowered having never made a road trip this long before and it going so well. I'm ready to do it again...but not now. I need a nap.
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