The Ohio Trip—Day ONE—Thursday

My trip odometer says the car moved 1033.1 miles.
There was an average of 36.2 mpg for fuel.
The highest price was the first fillup $3.46 a gallon here in Normal.
The lowest price $3.09 a gallon was paid at a gas station in Martins Ferry, in a place so old I had to leave my credit card with the attendant before she would turn on the pump.

I guess I should begin with the trip over.  The land the interstate winds through is flat.  There’s a treeline in the distance, and a barn or silo to break the monotony. The eats place with the Golden Arches can be found within sight of the exit ramp.

The CD player in the car has been broken for a long time, so I hit the SEEK button on the radio quite often. Car dealer commercials are the worst. Indianapolis has a fairly good Oldies station, and Columbus has good NPR for the news and interviews.

The construction for I-70 at Indianapolis caused a bit of confusion, but I got from I-74 east to I-70 east without too much hassle.

The first tank of gas usually gets me to Richmond, IN.
Near Cambridge City, about 20 miles before, I noticed something amiss a bit ahead. I let my foot off the gas pedal just as a semi-truck up there got bright red taillights.
By the time my foot touched my brake, at least 10 cars had hit theirs much harder than I had to stomp on mine. I kept it there so that others behind would be warned.
We had to come to a complete stop on the interstate.
There had been an accident.
I would estimate 30 vehicles between it and me, and none of us would move for 27 minutes.  Then an IDOT truck came lumbering up the shoulder, signaled to be let in and proceeded to block the left lane as closed ahead.
Now everybody had to move over to the right and exit at the next ramp, which turned out to be quite aways off.
I was watching my gauge, wondering how long less than a quarter tank would idle the engine.  And I really had a full bladder.

From the time I hit the brake to when I got to the restroom at McDs was 1 hour 47 minutes. I decided I might as well eat lunch and fill up right there in that little plaza, since the state trooper was still directing traffic away from the overpass.

The clerk said 3 people were injured, 2 cars totaled.

We travelers had to detour down a street in a little town, make a left onto Route 40 National Road, drive 8 miles, then another left onto a small blacktop back to I-70.
That’s an eery feeling, pushing the gas pedal to pick up speed, looking in the side mirror and not any vehicle coming up at me from the closed interstate.

I got to my sister Denise’s at twilight. I usually stop there first since her house is real close to an I-70 exit ramp in St.Clairsville. Once my head clears from interstate driving, I am ready to steer several miles along the hilly country road to my mother’s house.

Waiting there along with mom was my youngest sister and kid brother. He drove up from Virginia, got there in time to order pizza for their supper. They all waited up for me, even though I was two hours later than anticipated.
We talked awhile, got many huggs.

I slept on the couch, brother slept in the guest bedroom.
He loved having the room with the air conditioner.
I just wanted to get horizontal without hearing any engines.
I didn’t even care that I hadn’t eaten a thing since the #4 lunch at McDs.

~~love and Huggs, Diane

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