This is Part One of tonight’s installment.

While our “adventure” down here doesn’t seem quite as bad this evening…. as it felt yesterday at the height of exhaustion…. I will recap it…. by popular demand.

I think I shall call it…. Rhapsody in Blue.

We normally start out early…. before 5 a.m… when we have a big road journey. But waking up at 3:30 in the morning always feels a little subhuman somehow. So this time, we decided to shove off at a more modest time….before 7 a.m.  That may have been our first mistake.

We slipped a Kitty-Downer on Winnie…. packed up the pack of dogs, and off. All’s good in travel land. Or so we thought.

Holy Smackerels.

Morning rush hour traffic through Dayton, and Xenia… Rain…. Thick Fog. Creeping at the Speed of Snail. That’s okay. At least we have go-coffee.

Whoopsie. Doggie Puke. Nice. That makes the car smell nice for the next 15 hours…..

Now what the heck? Missed turn. Road construction. More rain and fog. More construction.

Please travel gods… deliver us to breakfast. Bob Evans. The wait staff were all experiencing issues with depression and repressed anger. Back on the road.

More slow traffic. Yet, another missed exit. And then a big yikes. Major wreck on 1-77. Multiple vehicle accident. (Not involving us….thank goodness.) However…. Highway CLOSED. Not just a little closed. All the way shut… and for hours.

OK again. We are trees… we can bend. So we take a “jaunt” through the hills of West Virginia in search of another route. Forty five minutes through the hollers of WV and little coal mining towns… we discover there is no way to get there. We had a coal mine worker tell us so.

Apparently, Nemo’s Dad was wrong. All drains DON’T lead to the ocean. Turn around. Go back from whence you came young ladies. All the way back.

On a very personal level… I had to pee on the way back down that mountain. So…. I peed in someone’s holler. I feel very blessed that I didn’t get my derrière shot off.

More construction. Orange barrels galore. For miles and miles.

A long search for Starbucks. But at this point, a late-night coffee seemed like a “must-have” item.

Gangstas at the Gas Station. Once again, I am very fortunate not to get my butt shot off again. (Sidebar… I was pumping the gas. Mary told me later she was “keeping an eye” on the robbery suspects… and she was ready to lock the car doors at any moment. Great. Locked on the outside of my own vehicle in the middle of  South Side Los Angeles.)

Guardian Angels are a good thing.

There are many more mishaps along the way. Too many to list.   But we came through it.   Albeit, what normally takes around 11 or 12 hours… translated into 15 hours in the car yesterday.

One big question I had though, while on our way… it involves Runaway Trucks.
Who knew? We saw all sorts of Runaway Truck Ramps in the hills of West Virginia, and Virginia. Runaway Trucks must be a problem in those states, I’ll tell. I’ve never seen one in Ohio. These trucks must have unhappy home lives… or mean truck-parents. I stopped and got some milk… and sure enough… right on the side of the carton was a picture of a runaway truck.    Pretty sad.  It looked so young in the photo.  There was a reward and everything.

And there you have it.