Monday Monday 5.12.2008

Top of the Monday Mornin' to Ya,

As they say (although I'm not exactly sure who "they" is), there's never a dull moment. As you probably know from previous "Monday Monday" emails, I drive from Charlotte to Annapolis every Sunday and from Annapolis to Charlotte every Thursday. Because I don't fly, I'm usually relatively unaffected by the weather (never cancelled, never delayed etc). The one thing in life that we can always be certain of is . . . uncertainty. When I left my home in northern South Carolina yesterday afternoon at about 1:30, the outside conditions were damp but not unmanageable. Starting about 50 miles north of home, the weather took a turn for the worse. At one point, I remember the rain coming down so hard that the restrictions to visibility went only as far as the inside of my car. Luckily this only lasted a few minutes, so with that little scare I turned on the local radio with some hope of catching a weather report. In light of the 2008 natural disaster season, what I learned next made for a frightening situation. Kat Country 96.9 informed me that a Tornado Watch was in affect for the entire Kat Country Listening Area. Aunt Pam gave me the good advice to turn the car around and go the other way if I ended up running into one. My thoughts went back to my viewing of the weather channel on Friday morning where I heard that 22 people died as Tornadoes ripped through the plain states on Thursday Night. Of course we also have heard the reports of a Cyclone killing thousands in Mynamar, and twisters wreaking havoc on Memphis, Atlanta, and Norfolk. On this one particular occasion, I would rather have had a flight into Baltimore. At one point, I even toyed with the idea of turning the car around and heading straight back home to make some flight arrangements, but the thought of driving back through the weather that impaired my vision so drastically made that decision difficult. I am heading North on I-85 and beginning to escape the greater Charlotte Area. The weather is letting up (even though I am still in a Tornado watch area) and my courage is beginning to reform, so I continue onward making phone calls to both Maggie and my family back in NY. The rain continues to fade in and out for the next couple of hours, so I notice that listening to rain is like listening to running water because I have never stopped to go to the bathroom more than I did last night. I haven't heard a weather report in a long time, so I'm thinking that I must be out of the woods because with no weather alerts there must not be any severe storms ahead. After crossing the Virginia line and driving for about 15 miles, the traffic and weather both pick right up. My radio makes the "this is a test" noise, but the attention signal I just heard was followed by official news, so it was not a test. Our Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) let me know a laundry list of Virginia towns could expect severe thunderstorms over the next couple of hours. The only town that rang a bell was Hopewell because I knew that I would be driving through that town in the next 20 minutes or so. EBS let me know that the severe storm would hit Hopewell at approximately 6:25. . .the time was 6:22, so I knew that I would drive through Hopewell in the middle of this lovely downpour. To make matters worse, the EBS also mentioned that a Tornado watch was issued until 8:00PM for that entire laundry list of towns. Driving in heavy traffic, heavy rain, and the fear of Mother Nature's onslaught I continued my northern journey up I-85 and I-95 to where I could get off the highway at exit 104 to take 301 through the rest of Virginia and into Maryland. It seemed like the weather let up again until I got off 301 and stopped at a gas station to fill up. Holding an umbrella in one hand while trying not to fly away Mary Poppins style and holding the gas pump in the other hand, I didn't manage to stay dry.The rain came down in buckets as I heard the country music song with the lyric "Do you think that God could use another Angel/ to help pour out the rain." All I could think about while listening to that song was "not tonight he doesn't." Although the rain came down in buckets, I thought that I finally escaped the tornadoes; I stayed tuned to public radio just in case anything changes. Next thing I know while driving up 301 toward the Potomac River Bridge, the EBS comes back over the radio issuing a Flood Warning until 3AM. I should mention that I called Maggie twice asking her to check
weather.com, so I could at least know what to expect. I wouldn't exactly call the rest of the drive smooth sailing because I had to go about 45 miles per hour, but all I had to deal with was the potential of Hydroplaning and heavy rain. The Potomac River Bridge is worth mentioning because people are stupid. There are signs all over the bridge reading "No stopping on Bridge," so hey what better time to stop than on a windy and rainy day. It wouldn't be fair for me to just call this any old bridge, so here is a link to a picture of this bridge that frightens me on a nice day(http://en.structurae.de/files/photos/2183/harry_w._nice_bridge.jpg). Regardless the bridge soars high over the Potomac, so that no drawbridge is needed for boats going under. You can imagine the strength of the wind at the bridges pinnacle, so hey why not make a stop there. Rain was coming at me from ever direction: over the side of bridge, off the road from the car in front of me, and the actual rain hit me on the side. So at the conclusion of this long story about my adventure yesterday, I will say that my 7 hour 20 min drive took me about 10 hours and 30 minutes, but I did arrive safely.

On a brighter note, the rest of my weekend featured fairly nice weather in the 70's. Don't worry, I didn't dare go near the pool before or after the hours of 9AM and 9PM. Maggie's parents were in town, so we took them over to Pineville where we walked through a bunch of Antique stores in the "Old Part of Town." Driving the back way home, we made a few decent discoveries. Maggie and I have known for quite some time that Fort Mill has a baseball team (Charlotte Knights), but we had no idea where it was and we thought it was just some local inter-state league. Come to find out, it is a minor league team for the Chicago White Sox. They play the Syracuse Chiefs, Rochester Red Wings, Richmond Braves, Scranton Yankees, and Indianapolis Indians. Tickets range from $7 for the cheap seats up to $12 for the expensive seats. Now I'm assuming that most of you have heard the expression "Farm Team" and now I am completely aware of the origin of that expression. This stadium in out in the middle of nowhere to the point where I am sure that most people don't even know that its there. Either way, I'm looking forward to watching a game or two.


Along our journey with Maggie's parents, we also found a "Pick Your Own" strawberry patch, a Farmer's Market, and a Flea Market. The number of Charlotte-based activities that I'll be participating in just went through the roof.

Weekend Scoreboard
Golf (Card Game) - Maggie 1
Mexican Train - Joanne 1

Update on Mario Kart Wii. I have conquered the game on 50cc (Karts Only) and 100cc (Bikes Only), but I still have to begin my quest at 150cc (Karts and Bikes) to go. I picked up Mario Kart for Game Boy Advanced at the flea market, so I can work on that while waiting to get back home.
I hope everyone has a great week!

Ryan

-- Ryan Joy