We're back, but oh, what a trip!

December 30, 2017 - Sunday

-9 degrees/partly cloudy/breezy

Pentoga Road

My eyes are open this morning, but I'm not entirely sure I'm awake. Two days of ten-hour drives, back to back, make Tom and Sargie a couple of tired kids. 

The actual drive isn't so bad, it's the others on the road who act as though they've never seen a snow plow. I think Illinois drivers are the worst. A snowplow parked in the median of an interstate highway is enough to bring all traffic to a stop. 

"Look Ma! It's a snowplow! You think if we stopped they'd let us touch it?"

Thankfully there wasn't a large truck-mounted snowblower at hand. Had there been, we'd still be sitting, gawking at the thing somewhere down in Illinois or southern Wisconsin.

Sargie and I originally planned to leave Terre Haute early Friday morning, but that didn't happen. Rather than get out of bed at my usual early morning hour, I snuggled up with Sargie and fell back into a deep sleep. 

We bade Mom goodbye around 8 AM. The first part of the trip was flawless. Traffic was fairly heavy, but moved along at a good clip.

By the time we reached central Illinois, heavy snow was falling, making for poor visibility. To make matters worse, the traffic was heavy. 

Strange, the difference between central Indiana and the upper Midwest. We haven't seen a duck or goose in months, yet in Mom's part of the world, we saw thousands of snow and Canada geese.

It appeared most were feeding in corn fields.

We crossed a road with the same name as mine, but whoever it was named for was obviously much more important than I'll ever be.

Though I would never do it, there's just a little part of me that would like to swipe the sign and bring it back as a souvenir. Knowing my luck, I'd be discovered and get to spend time in the local jail. I can see the headlines now:

Retired Professor and Educator of Forty Years Jailed for Petty Theft

The snow continued into southern Wisconsin. It seemed as though we were hemmed in between two tractor trailers more often than not with a continual river of slush being thrown onto our windshield.

Almost a gallon of windshield wiper fluid was used on the drive home. In fact, we'll be heading to the local car wash later to remove a few layers of salt and frozen slush from the car.

Traffic remained heavy almost all the way home. It seemed everyone was heading in the same direction so we simply had to fall in line and take our time.

We enjoyed texting back and forth with Mom during the day, letting her know of our progress. For a lady who had never texted in her life until the day before, she became quite adept. 

Watch out, I think we may have a new queen of the social media!

We finally arrived back on Pentoga Road around 6:30 Friday evening. It didn't take long to unload the car and get the house warm. The rest of the evening was spent trying to keep awake. We finally gave up and went to bed.

Today will be a lazy one. Isabella, along with her parents, will be flying back to Wyoming on Sunday so we'll try to get to town today to tell them goodbye. Their time in the UP went entirely too quickly.

Otherwise, we have no plans. I think it will be a day of R&R. In fact, the most ambitious activity I have planned is to take an afternoon nap.

After all, a man's work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...

SOMEONE get me out of this traffic and snow!