yyt

the main concern in returning from baltimore was the choice. fast and expensive via the tollways, or slower but free via mid-state ohio and indiana.  I-81 through virginia had been deadly . i knew that i wasn’t to see anything along the interstate but i had to make time. i sort of had to do the same thing returning to the pissoir. i felt that i was back to those days when we would have to get up at 4am to beat the traffic and make good time

there was an added wrinkle to the choice. i would be more bothered by taking the more direct and costly route if there were constant construction. i chose the southern route.

i have to stop hurrying and i could get a slew of timbits in columbus. the added incentive of the southern route is the bypassing of the onslaught of boredom when between cleveland and south bend. it only becomes better at south bend as i then can start to count down the miles until i am out of the state. the southern route has hills, it only barely bypasses cities. like wanting to follow the blue ridge parkway through virginia one day i want find time heading to baltimore to drive the national pike. the national pike, the blue ridge parkway, routes with names. two long delays that at first irritated me then allowed me to slow down more. at least i wasn’t paying for the privilege of sitting in a tail back if i were on the tollways.

with the forced slowing, i diverted. left the interstate at columbus and took a series of state roads to the the lincoln highway fort wayne. rounding columbus headed into a strong thunderstorm that slowed traffic again but the storm passed quickly. although it didn’t seem so as traffic didn’t stop, it must have been a strong one as we at times had to dodge branches.

now on the “blue highways” i was passing things interesting. once again i had to force myself to switch from making time to making snaps. quite a few u-turns along state road 117 heading into lima.

thought myself very lucky as i would come across these drive-ins that were closed. thought it must have been bad luck to have these close as they were in such good state.

entering lima and needed gasoline, i thought it strange that gas bars would be closed so early in the evening as was the walmart, the dunkin donuts, the mcdonald’s.

finally caught on. that storm that slowed me down a bit slowed down lima and really everything between and fort wayne a great deal. power outages everywhere. finally found gasoline on the west side of fort wayne - knew there was power here as the queue for the mcdonalds stretched down the highway. but people were talking about the outage the way that bodega bay talked about the birds.

when i finally get myself to slow down, i really do go to extremes. now i was stopping for anything that had potential. the only reason that i made it back to the pissoir by 1am was when it finally became dark and all i could do was drive - through another thunderstorm.