Four Miles In 80 Minutes

It’s been a long time since we took a road trip, and even longer since we saw our friend Chris Yust. Chris and her late husband, Charles, owned C&C Insurance, and we worked the RV rally circuit together for years. We became close to them, and when we weren’t at a rally someplace, if we were anywhere in the same area, we always got together for dinner, visiting, and exploring.

Chris and Charles hung up the keys and bought a place in Lake Wales, about 120 miles south of us. And, of course, we hung up the keys in October of 2016. Unfortunately, Charles did not get to enjoy the post-RV lifestyle for long, passing away suddenly a year ago.

Covid has kept everybody self-isolating away from others, well, at least anybody with common sense, but now that all three of us have been vaccinated, Terry and I decided to take a day trip to Lake Wales to visit with Chris yesterday.

The trip down was good, no problems at all, and Chris greeted us with hugs and we shed a few tears together. But we also shared a lot of laughs, talking about all the things that we had seen and done as fulltime RVers.

Chris made us a delicious late lunch/early dinner of grilled pork chops, roasted new potatoes and corn for me, and roasted asparagus and veggies for her and Miss Terry. We spent the afternoon visiting, bringing each other up to date on what we have been up to, and talking about our many friends from that time in our lives. And while all three of us agreed that it was wonderful while it was happening, we also all agreed that we wouldn’t want to hit the road again. Been there, done that.

We wanted to be home before it got dark, so we left about 5:30 PM, figuring that would put us home around 7:30. What’s that they say? God laughs when we make plans? About 20 minutes or so after we left Chris’s place, we ran into a horrendous traffic jam on State Route 60 eastbound and came to a complete stop. We sat for a long time, moved a few feet at a time, and stopped again, and repeated the process over and over. It took us over 80 minutes to cover four miles.

When we got to Yeehaw Junction, we saw what we think was the cause of the traffic jam. This boat was sitting at the entrance to a gas station there, there was a large tow truck, and I saw what looked like the fender of a pickup truck laying in the grass. This area is very busy, and I think someone tried to make a turn across traffic into or from the gas station and got hit. I could be wrong about that, but we didn’t see any other evidence of an accident on the road.

By the time we finally hit Interstate 95 and headed north, the sun was fading, and within another 25 miles or so it was getting too dark for me to drive. We stopped at a convenience store in Malabar for fuel and a potty break, and then Miss Terry took the wheel and drove the rest of the way home. It was after 9 by the time we pulled into our garage, tired from our long day trip but still happy we got to see our friend.

Congratulations Judy Rinehimer, winner of our drawing for an autographed copy of Barefoot In The Parking Lot by Vineet Verma. We had 64 entries this time around. Stay tuned, a new contest starts soon.

Thought For The Day – When somebody asks me what I did over the weekend, I squint and ask, “Why? What did you hear?”