Well, it’s been a long, long day of driving, much longer than it should have been, but them’s the breaks.
We started out a little late, which I’m used to by now, and had breakfast from McDonald’s, in the car. I broke the “No eating when I’m driving” rule because we were late, but it sort of set the tone for the whole day.
All day, it rained just enough to be annoying, but not enough to be able to leave the wipers on intermittent, so all day, I was continually turning the wipers on and off.
There seems to be more trucks on the road every time I drive somewhere, and it just irritates me being on a long stretch of interstate, in BFE…and stuck in a never-ending ribbon of truck traffic.
We’d decided on an alternate route the night before, a scenic state route, and being that it’s labeled a State Scenic Byway, we thought for sure there’d be spots to turn off the road and have our picnic lunch, or even a state park, or even a little town/village green space somewhere…but no. Not a spot.
We ended up enjoying our lunch while taking in the exhilarating views offered by the dollar store parking lot.,,look!…a shopping cart! Don’t see one of those every day! And how about that dumpster full of pallets and cardboard?! Now that’s what I’m talking about! I
, but it was
.
After the scenic state route, we rode I-68, which is a beautiful drive as well, but it’s definitely up this hill and down, getting over one big hill/small mountain after another (as was the state route).
We eventually got within 30 minutes of the hotel and decided to take the back way in, got off the interstate, then made another last-minute decision, which was very wrong, and ended up taking about 50 minutes to drive what would have been less than 20, had we stayed on the interstate the whole time.
Oh, but the fun was just starting. I went out to get half-and-half for tea…convenience store right the other side of the road, but no left turn out of the hotel, so I had to turn right.
As soon as I turned right, I spotted a proper grocery store off to my left, drove to what I thought was the turn-in for it, but it was one entrance too soon, with no way to cut over to the parking lot for the store, so I got back out to the road and…again, no left turn.
I said, “Forget it, I’m going back up to the convenience store, now that I’m on the right side of the road,” drove up there, went in, couldn’t find the half-and-half. Forget that, I couldn’t even find the
milk!
I asked the guy at the counter where the milk was, and when I’m tired, my accent gets a little thicker, and the jerk thought it was funny, and mocked me, saying, “The
mee-yilk? The
mee-yilk is over
they-yer!“ and then started laughing.
I was mad they didn’t have half-and-half, because I wanted to make him ring it up, and then tell him to pizz off. I had to settle for just telling him to pizz off. Jerk.
That meant…you guessed it, back to the grocery store, where I did finally manage to get into the parking lot, get my half-and-half and some fig newtons, and get back to the hotel, where the digital key my wife shared with me wouldn’t work on my phone, so I had to get a swipe key.
All told, to get half-and-half, it took three stops at two places that I can plainly see from the hotel room, and nearly 30 minutes. I could have walked across the highway and back in about 10 minutes, but when I did that the last time I was here, I damn near got hit, both directions.
