noflyingfan
12-23-2004, 04:41 AM
I complained the other day about not wanting to get into the car and drive ten hours from Chicago to my parents' house in Pennsylvania, and guess what...it turns out I didn't have to! I got into the car and drove TWELVE hours from Chicago to my parents' house in Pennsylvania.
Beth, I think you're great, but I hate the state in which you live.
Things were going well. The boyfriend and I left at 8:30 this morning (central time). I took the first shift, because I like to get my turn over with. The trip is pretty much a straight shot on I-80 through Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and we were making good time. We had a little snow blowing around in Indiana, but nothing was sticking. Then we got into Ohio and everything was clear...and then....
About five hours into the trip, we'd gone about 300 miles. All of a sudden, seriously out of nowhere, the road got slooshy. It started snowing, those little tiny flakes that usually just kind of blow around, but there were so many little tiny flakes that they were sticking. The farther we went, the worse it got, and before too long, I was crawling along, completely tense because I just KNEW that at any moment I would slide or someone else would slide into me.
In the next three hours, we went only 100 miles. I have serious complaints about the Ohio Department of Transportation, or whoever is supposed to maintain the turnpike, but I'll save that for another time.
My boyfriend and I stopped to switch a little over halfway through the trip. I'm a real control freak, so I feel weird about him driving my car anyway (even though he's a much better driver than I and intellectually, I trust him completely). But the snow had me freaked out even more, although it had been plowed and the road wasn't so bad when we switched. I was petrified that something was going to happen after I relinquished the wheel to him.
So I used my fear of flying techniques. While many argue that flying is safer than driving, it's not like driving is as treacherous as people make it out to be. I mean, sure, it's scary out there, but just as you're not signing a death warrant by getting on a plane, you're also not doing so by getting into a car. I drive hundreds of miles every week without incident.
I wanted to reach into my purse and take out my new MP3 player that my boyfriend had gotten me for Christmas (we decided to have our own little Christmas exchange before we left Chicago), and I caught myself thinking, "but it's snowing. Listening to music is just a sign that I'm relaxed; that just invites fate to send more snow and ice."
That's when I knew I'd better pull out the @#%$ MP3 player and get those headphones into my ears right away, to show fate that I knew that my sitting in the passenger's seat listening to music was not going to affect my boyfriend's driving or the driving of anyone else on the road, or even the weather.
Well, I showed fate. We got out of Ohio, and Pennsylvania greeted us with a steady but light and unthreatening rain. Less than an hour in, the roads were completely dry. In your face, fate.
I was dreading this trip, and the drive today was even more miserable than usual, but I feel pretty good, because I got through it without any major problems. I almost feel like I completed a flight today.
(Although I really wish that, instead of a 12-hour trip on I-80, I had completed a flight today!)
Beth, I think you're great, but I hate the state in which you live.
Things were going well. The boyfriend and I left at 8:30 this morning (central time). I took the first shift, because I like to get my turn over with. The trip is pretty much a straight shot on I-80 through Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and we were making good time. We had a little snow blowing around in Indiana, but nothing was sticking. Then we got into Ohio and everything was clear...and then....
About five hours into the trip, we'd gone about 300 miles. All of a sudden, seriously out of nowhere, the road got slooshy. It started snowing, those little tiny flakes that usually just kind of blow around, but there were so many little tiny flakes that they were sticking. The farther we went, the worse it got, and before too long, I was crawling along, completely tense because I just KNEW that at any moment I would slide or someone else would slide into me.
In the next three hours, we went only 100 miles. I have serious complaints about the Ohio Department of Transportation, or whoever is supposed to maintain the turnpike, but I'll save that for another time.
My boyfriend and I stopped to switch a little over halfway through the trip. I'm a real control freak, so I feel weird about him driving my car anyway (even though he's a much better driver than I and intellectually, I trust him completely). But the snow had me freaked out even more, although it had been plowed and the road wasn't so bad when we switched. I was petrified that something was going to happen after I relinquished the wheel to him.
So I used my fear of flying techniques. While many argue that flying is safer than driving, it's not like driving is as treacherous as people make it out to be. I mean, sure, it's scary out there, but just as you're not signing a death warrant by getting on a plane, you're also not doing so by getting into a car. I drive hundreds of miles every week without incident.
I wanted to reach into my purse and take out my new MP3 player that my boyfriend had gotten me for Christmas (we decided to have our own little Christmas exchange before we left Chicago), and I caught myself thinking, "but it's snowing. Listening to music is just a sign that I'm relaxed; that just invites fate to send more snow and ice."
That's when I knew I'd better pull out the @#%$ MP3 player and get those headphones into my ears right away, to show fate that I knew that my sitting in the passenger's seat listening to music was not going to affect my boyfriend's driving or the driving of anyone else on the road, or even the weather.
Well, I showed fate. We got out of Ohio, and Pennsylvania greeted us with a steady but light and unthreatening rain. Less than an hour in, the roads were completely dry. In your face, fate.
I was dreading this trip, and the drive today was even more miserable than usual, but I feel pretty good, because I got through it without any major problems. I almost feel like I completed a flight today.
(Although I really wish that, instead of a 12-hour trip on I-80, I had completed a flight today!)