Adventures in Pre-Thanksgiving Transit
Everybody knows that Thanksgiving is one of the biggest American holidays in many respects. It encompasses everything American that could possibly be represented. Travel, company, gorging oneself with food, and then gorging oneself with leftovers, and then gorging oneself with healthy consumeristic shopping; even getting up early to do so. These things that burden us in modern times are something those pilgrims didn't have in mind when they shot that turkey and slapped it on the table for a healthy fellowship meal with the injuns. So let me set the mood for you. Keep in mind that it normally takes me about 4 and a half hours to get from Beloit to home.
I was anxious to go home after a long night of very little sleep and a harsh make-up test that I completed on Wednesday morning, so at about 2:00 in the afternoon I was all packed up and ready to go. So I was on my way. On my way to the highway, I stopped in for gas, at the Flying J which was very crowded and I noticed several cars that had piles of ice and snow on their front fenders and I thought to myself how odd that was since it was not snowing very heavily at all, it was just cold. But, when I got on the highway itself, and noticed many more cars coming from the opposite direction covered with snow and ice. That's when I decided I was going to be in for a trip that was more than I bargained for.
At about Rockford the snow really started to pick up. The traffic had already picked up as the day before Thanksgiving is, as we all know, the biggest travel day of the year in America. We were still moving quite along and a lot of the traffic died down after I passed the exit for Chicago. But the snow kept getting worse and worse. Every once in a while I would see a car that had flown off the side of the road in a ditch or on the shoulder, just waiting for someone to come to their rescue. I didn't really think much of it and continued on my way. It got to the point, though, that the cars in front of me began to slow down when approaching one of these sidelined automobiles, and this was especially the case when there were police cars about.
About 69 miles outside of Bloomington was the biggest one so far, and there was a police car taking up the left lane of traffic. It was then that my uncle called me on my cell phone and that I almost slid into the back of the van in front of me. Following that accident, traffic moved pretty slowly moving into Bloomington. The roads had about three inches of snow and slush on them and there was a car that slipped off or an accident about every ten minutes. Moving about thirty miles an hour, it took a long time to get into Bloomington.
But the best was yet to come!
A long time doesn't even begin to describe the trek through Bloomington itself. Maybe a few miles outside of Bloomington traffic stopped completely. So I put the truck in park and waited. After about twenty minutes, we started to move again. I thought, "Oh boy," they must have cleared the accident ahead and we're going to be able to move on now. Wrong! We moved about five feet and then stopped for another twenty minutes. It continued like that for the next two hours. I listened to a lot of music, including Mahler's first symphony, called some friends, and generally occupied myself while waiting for traffic to continue and watching the occasional SUV driver pass me by on the shoulder and get out of this mess.
Three hours later, I was on my way. But I was sure beat. I pulled over and got some gas and some drinks and some snacks, and got ready to combat my second wind and bring it on home. Or at least that's what I was prepared to do. Bloomington to Springfield seemed like it took an unreasonably short time, which was fun. But outside of Springfield, disaster struck again. The roads were becoming progressively more slick and icy, as opposed to the roads in Bloomington, which were just wet. More often, I was seeing cars off to the side, lights flashing, stranded in snow, and having to wait for people to show up to rescue them. I really didn't want to be one of those people. I slipped a couple of times on ice on the bridges, but nothing serious enough to throw me off. I always regained control. Then I came to the biggest accident of them all.
I saw cop cars lined up underneath an overpass ahead and out in front of them was another trooper with flares lined up on the road. I slowed down when passing them by and the officer outside stopped me and told me to pull over. So I did. After waving a few more cars on their way, he came over a talked to me. He told me I was going too fast and that I had better slow down or else I'd end up in a body bag like the guy ahead of me. Looking ahead to the overpass and the line of police cars, I noticed another car that was flipped over in the snow. Well, that just about scared the bejesus out of me and I continued on my way very slowly. My top speed was probably about 45, and that proved to be too fast when I hit a patch of ice on a bridge about 15 miles farther down, slipped off the road, and I ended up in the snow.
Thankfully, I did not flip over or even as much as hit anything. I was safe, just stuck. Looking up ahead of me, I noticed where I was, and conveniently, I was just at the exit one would take to get to my aunt and uncle's house about fifteen minutes from there. I was outside of Jacksonville, and my mom's sister and brother-in-law live on a farm in rural, Illinois, just north of Roodhouse (look that up on ePodunk.com). So I got on the phone and called them, and they heartily agreed to come rescue me from the snow. In a half hour they arrived and strapped my truck onto my uncle's 4x4 Ford F-150 and started to yank me out a little bit. Proving to be fruitless, however, they found a tow truck who was going from strandee to strandee, turning them into customers.
In the heart of pulling my truck out, however, another vehicle traveling quite fast slipped on the ice and spun off the road adjacent to me. This night was just getting scarier and scarier as it went on, and I, for one, was not taking it lightly. Thoughts continued to fill my head of past highway accidents and this was all becoming too surreal for me to deal with. The sooner we could get out of this situation the better. The fact that I was joined by my aunt and uncle helped, but it did not ease my fears at all. We agreed that I would just spend the night at their house, rather than try to continue the last hour on home in the dark on the ice. So, we paid the tow truck guys and went on our way, after the guy in the minivan had gone on his way as well.
We arrived at their house, a cold and lonely farm house on the side of the road, which at this time was powerless because of the snowstorm. It was now about 11:30 at night, more than nine hours from when I left Beloit. I wasn't home, but at least I was safe. When it comes to being on the road, there are so many situations where the outcome can be life or death. The speed and force at which things happen on the highway can make it a pretty unsafe place to be. I feared for my life a few times that night and have only a few people to thank that I came out unscathed. I was able to enjoy Thanksgiving, even though I missed watching the parade, and able to be all the more thankful for love, life, and family.
I was anxious to go home after a long night of very little sleep and a harsh make-up test that I completed on Wednesday morning, so at about 2:00 in the afternoon I was all packed up and ready to go. So I was on my way. On my way to the highway, I stopped in for gas, at the Flying J which was very crowded and I noticed several cars that had piles of ice and snow on their front fenders and I thought to myself how odd that was since it was not snowing very heavily at all, it was just cold. But, when I got on the highway itself, and noticed many more cars coming from the opposite direction covered with snow and ice. That's when I decided I was going to be in for a trip that was more than I bargained for.
At about Rockford the snow really started to pick up. The traffic had already picked up as the day before Thanksgiving is, as we all know, the biggest travel day of the year in America. We were still moving quite along and a lot of the traffic died down after I passed the exit for Chicago. But the snow kept getting worse and worse. Every once in a while I would see a car that had flown off the side of the road in a ditch or on the shoulder, just waiting for someone to come to their rescue. I didn't really think much of it and continued on my way. It got to the point, though, that the cars in front of me began to slow down when approaching one of these sidelined automobiles, and this was especially the case when there were police cars about.
About 69 miles outside of Bloomington was the biggest one so far, and there was a police car taking up the left lane of traffic. It was then that my uncle called me on my cell phone and that I almost slid into the back of the van in front of me. Following that accident, traffic moved pretty slowly moving into Bloomington. The roads had about three inches of snow and slush on them and there was a car that slipped off or an accident about every ten minutes. Moving about thirty miles an hour, it took a long time to get into Bloomington.
But the best was yet to come!
A long time doesn't even begin to describe the trek through Bloomington itself. Maybe a few miles outside of Bloomington traffic stopped completely. So I put the truck in park and waited. After about twenty minutes, we started to move again. I thought, "Oh boy," they must have cleared the accident ahead and we're going to be able to move on now. Wrong! We moved about five feet and then stopped for another twenty minutes. It continued like that for the next two hours. I listened to a lot of music, including Mahler's first symphony, called some friends, and generally occupied myself while waiting for traffic to continue and watching the occasional SUV driver pass me by on the shoulder and get out of this mess.
Three hours later, I was on my way. But I was sure beat. I pulled over and got some gas and some drinks and some snacks, and got ready to combat my second wind and bring it on home. Or at least that's what I was prepared to do. Bloomington to Springfield seemed like it took an unreasonably short time, which was fun. But outside of Springfield, disaster struck again. The roads were becoming progressively more slick and icy, as opposed to the roads in Bloomington, which were just wet. More often, I was seeing cars off to the side, lights flashing, stranded in snow, and having to wait for people to show up to rescue them. I really didn't want to be one of those people. I slipped a couple of times on ice on the bridges, but nothing serious enough to throw me off. I always regained control. Then I came to the biggest accident of them all.
I saw cop cars lined up underneath an overpass ahead and out in front of them was another trooper with flares lined up on the road. I slowed down when passing them by and the officer outside stopped me and told me to pull over. So I did. After waving a few more cars on their way, he came over a talked to me. He told me I was going too fast and that I had better slow down or else I'd end up in a body bag like the guy ahead of me. Looking ahead to the overpass and the line of police cars, I noticed another car that was flipped over in the snow. Well, that just about scared the bejesus out of me and I continued on my way very slowly. My top speed was probably about 45, and that proved to be too fast when I hit a patch of ice on a bridge about 15 miles farther down, slipped off the road, and I ended up in the snow.
Thankfully, I did not flip over or even as much as hit anything. I was safe, just stuck. Looking up ahead of me, I noticed where I was, and conveniently, I was just at the exit one would take to get to my aunt and uncle's house about fifteen minutes from there. I was outside of Jacksonville, and my mom's sister and brother-in-law live on a farm in rural, Illinois, just north of Roodhouse (look that up on ePodunk.com). So I got on the phone and called them, and they heartily agreed to come rescue me from the snow. In a half hour they arrived and strapped my truck onto my uncle's 4x4 Ford F-150 and started to yank me out a little bit. Proving to be fruitless, however, they found a tow truck who was going from strandee to strandee, turning them into customers.
In the heart of pulling my truck out, however, another vehicle traveling quite fast slipped on the ice and spun off the road adjacent to me. This night was just getting scarier and scarier as it went on, and I, for one, was not taking it lightly. Thoughts continued to fill my head of past highway accidents and this was all becoming too surreal for me to deal with. The sooner we could get out of this situation the better. The fact that I was joined by my aunt and uncle helped, but it did not ease my fears at all. We agreed that I would just spend the night at their house, rather than try to continue the last hour on home in the dark on the ice. So, we paid the tow truck guys and went on our way, after the guy in the minivan had gone on his way as well.
We arrived at their house, a cold and lonely farm house on the side of the road, which at this time was powerless because of the snowstorm. It was now about 11:30 at night, more than nine hours from when I left Beloit. I wasn't home, but at least I was safe. When it comes to being on the road, there are so many situations where the outcome can be life or death. The speed and force at which things happen on the highway can make it a pretty unsafe place to be. I feared for my life a few times that night and have only a few people to thank that I came out unscathed. I was able to enjoy Thanksgiving, even though I missed watching the parade, and able to be all the more thankful for love, life, and family.
posted by Leland J. Fischer at 2:00 PM
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