On the road, and nearly killed today
Jul. 17th, 2006 07:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tagrynPosting from a hotel just outside Nashville. We covered 1,300 miles our first couple of days following Route 40, staying in Gallop NM the first night and Oklahoma City last night. We're planning to arrive in our new home, Waldorf MD, tomorrow evening - a full day ahead of schedule. The cats have been OK, mostly sleeping during the drives, though we've had to give our big grey Tribble a mild tranquilizer the last two mornings - poor guy just does NOT like being in a moving car.
We woke up at 4:30 AM on Saturday, our first day, because we didn't want to be caught in the Mojave come the worst of the afternoon heat. We made Kingman AZ on the eastern edge of the main desert by 11:30 AM, so that worked out nicely.
The hotel here in Tennesee and in Gallop were Comfort Inns - very nice, the room was set up to accomodate pets (closed off underneath the beds so pets couldn't get under them for example). The "Quality Inn" in Oklahoma City was, well, not as good. It was a regular room in a hope-the-cars-still-there-in-the-morning neighborhood just of Rt. 40.
We nearly got in a serious accident today. I was driving on the 40 in Arkansas going the speed limit (70 MPH) in the left lane. A large truck and a black Cadillac were coming off the on-ramp onto the highway as we were going by. Well, the truck was going too slow for the driver of the Cadillac as they were merging in, so he decided to swerve around it...which put it right in front of *me*, again, going 70. I swerved instantly into the median, which was fortunately open (grassy) and level with the road, and hit the brakes. The tires didn't slide or stick on the grass, again fortunately, or we could have easily flipped or spun at that speed. Fortunately the car was undamaged except for some grass tufts stuck in the undercarriage. Our nerves weren't in quite as good shape, but we managed to continue to our destination.
Of course, the Cadillac in question never braked or stopped, just kept on going. I just hope he didn't kill someone later that day driving that way.
We woke up at 4:30 AM on Saturday, our first day, because we didn't want to be caught in the Mojave come the worst of the afternoon heat. We made Kingman AZ on the eastern edge of the main desert by 11:30 AM, so that worked out nicely.
The hotel here in Tennesee and in Gallop were Comfort Inns - very nice, the room was set up to accomodate pets (closed off underneath the beds so pets couldn't get under them for example). The "Quality Inn" in Oklahoma City was, well, not as good. It was a regular room in a hope-the-cars-still-there-in-the-morning neighborhood just of Rt. 40.
We nearly got in a serious accident today. I was driving on the 40 in Arkansas going the speed limit (70 MPH) in the left lane. A large truck and a black Cadillac were coming off the on-ramp onto the highway as we were going by. Well, the truck was going too slow for the driver of the Cadillac as they were merging in, so he decided to swerve around it...which put it right in front of *me*, again, going 70. I swerved instantly into the median, which was fortunately open (grassy) and level with the road, and hit the brakes. The tires didn't slide or stick on the grass, again fortunately, or we could have easily flipped or spun at that speed. Fortunately the car was undamaged except for some grass tufts stuck in the undercarriage. Our nerves weren't in quite as good shape, but we managed to continue to our destination.
Of course, the Cadillac in question never braked or stopped, just kept on going. I just hope he didn't kill someone later that day driving that way.
