Highway To Hell

A: As I hadn’t driven in a day, after Elle did the first leg of the trip out to Asheville (FYI, also the proving ground for one Miss Veronica Corningstone) I said I’d pick up the leg into town. We had about 140 miles left, I guess, and the drive into Nashville was so pleasant, just long, straight stretches of interstate, I figured, eh, why not. Lioux was furiously typing away yesterday’s posts, and it was that perfect time of day, right around 4-4:30 PMish.

Well, this decision would prove to be just the first of my many bad decisions yesterday. Within about 45 minutes, we entered what looked like the skies of Hades as the light trickled away from Earth and was replaced with dark-ass clouds and TORRENTIAL rain. The kind of rain that, while driving a car, actually makes you almost want to jerk the wheel into a ravine just so you don’t have to drive in it anymore. I am a total rain sissy, so I drove pretty slowly, but not too slowly, because we still had a date to keep in Asheville. After the rain subsided, I took a deep breath and steadied myself for the rest of the trip.

But my solace was short-lived. We entered the Great Smoky Mountains, and began what was one of the most harrowing journeys I have ever been privy to in a motor vehicle. I had to navigate approximately 30-40 miles of the windiest, most scariest, possible rockslidiest, big rig overpoweringist and otherwise f-ing DEADLY highway I have ever seen. There was not a single straight piece of road for the entire distance. It was all bendy and gross. Every time I found a tiny piece I thought I could use to get around a truck, I would lose my line of sight because it would start bending almost immediately and I would be forced to retreat behind the rig again. Over and over. It started to be kind of comical, but then that feeling quickly evaporated when I realized that the road just kept going.

Then another truck entered DeathRoad and got in my way immediately. This truck was carrying huge chunks of tree and log, and looked as though it could drop one onto our hood and flip the van right over at any second. More of the tug-of-war with the road, I finally pass it. Whew.

THEN we notice there’s an accident investigation scene a little bit ahead. We come up to it, and there is this big honking 18-wheeler completely flipped up on its side. It was insane. I don’t even know how that could have happened.

We finally emerge from this hellish trial and everyone confesses that they were freaking thankful as hell that they didn’t have to physically drive just then. I start to feel like a bit of a hero, although I think I may have pooped a little in my pants, so that’s not really heroic.

COMPLETELY needless to say, I had a nice, fat whiskey as soon as we reached the hotel.

L: I’m actually glad I had the laptop to keep my occupied. It was pretty funny as I sat there clickity clacking away on the keyboards preparing posts. I was completely distracted aside from the occasional glance up when Alienwhere, Elle and Marconi would be freaking out about this or that.