The Move so far

[cornerofmadness]

It's long. Look under the cut if you're interested.

So, on Friday I’m ready to rock and roll. All I have to do now is pack up the computer in the car. For those who don’t know, I’ve had countless people call me a weather witch. Where I go bad weather follows. I left Florida outracing Hurricane Charlie, the first of the massively destructive ones last year. I’ve been in Tombstone Arizona in torrential downpours where locals were going ‘never seen anything like this at this time of the year.’ Nearly 20 years ago my half Cherokee, half Navajo significant other jokingly said he’d make my tribal name ‘She who walks with Rain.’

So it comes to no surprise that suddenly, after a week of heat like the north woods of Wisconsin rarely sees, hail the size of golf balls starts coming down and rain is whipping so hard I have to shut windows on the east, north and south ends of the house. I’m not going in that. I eventually have to dismantle the computer and as I do, the lightning starts. My leaving Wisconsin is delayed by two hours. I take the key and garage opener back to Zog and he says I heard ‘hail on the roof, yep, Dana must be leaving.’ (Later, he emails to say Three Lakes was the Only place that hit.) So me and Yukio, who’s loaded to his little gills (I’m surprised his tires didn’t burst) get on the road.

I make it to Madison with ease and hang out with Becki for a little while. She’s doing well. The heat index in Madison is 102. Okay, do we understand how unusual this is? As I leave the restaurant and I’m turning around to go back on 90/39S and I’m nearly T-boned by the Weiner mobile (Madison is a home base for Oscar Meyer). This will be how I die, five feet of 3-ton hot dog on wheels embedded in my car and some joker in my family will put it on my head stone. I do manage to make it to Ottawa IL for the night (it’s a trip of around 900 miles from Three Lakes WI to Bulger PA). On the way there I see a car with vanity plates reading Lowlyfe, nothing like advertising.

I barely survive the buffet at the Country Kitchen the next day. Okay, their food isn’t great but usually it’s decent. Not this time. Blech. I get on the road. I can’t figure out why when I’m nearly Chicago that it’s a 250 mile run to Toledo OH. I kind forgot Indiana existed but that’s easy to do. If you’ve been there, you’ll know why. Of course Chi-Town and Gary IN have tons of construction that hold me up but that’s okay. I’m not really in a rush and it gives me time to wave to Avery and Susan. And hey once again Mapquest & Google prove free map directions are worth what you pay for them. They were off on the mileage on the 80/90E split near Cleveland by 20 miles and totally forgot 100 miles before 80E is no longer a turnpike and that I can get on 11 S to go to my uncle’s place at Hillbilly Cove (opps, I mean Berlin Lake). So I’m going to arrive much later than anticipated and it’s starting to rain (of course, glad Zog lent me some RainX)

Oddly enough when I first hit OH, I stopped at an oasis for Starbucks and there was this goofy father and his kids (the wife was out with the dog in the car). I get my iced mocha latte (Because it’s hotter than the face of the sun outside). Later when I stop to eat near Cleveland, I sit down with my Sbarro’s strombli and I hear that same goofy father. He’s at the next table with the kids (the wife is still out in the car with the dog).

So I finally manage to get to Hillbilly Cove. Short history of the lake: big partially man-made lake in Amish country, filled with little cottages and trailers for years. My uncle and aunt have had a trailer there for nearly 20 years. Yuppies have recently discovered it and bigger houses are going up and I can’t wait for the Hillbilly vs. Yuppie smackdown. My uncle just put up a new ‘double wide’ which is really a modular home.

It’s beautiful. Big ol’ kitchen with a skylight, living room, master bed with a garden bath and two small bedrooms and another full bathroom. One problem, the electrician screwed up and the power wasn’t on yet. So we have no lights. They’ve run giant electrical cords from the neighbors and have a little generator so we have some fans (because, it’s hotter than hell) and there’s no electricity for the water pump which means we have to carry lake water up in buckets to dump into the toilets to make them flush.

Mom feeds me dinner. We discuss staying overnight and I don’t want to (see that hotter than hell thing). We go for a boat ride and I had heard the perfect song for this place on the way here, the new one by Craig Morgan Redneck Yacht Club which has a line about tying up party barges and Bayliners like a floating trailer park. My aunt is not assumed (probably because we’re planning to tie up the party barge to the Sea Ray come next week at the 4th of July celebration to which their neighbor the cop puts on the best show of almost legal fireworks you’ll ever see). We’re not rednecks after all.

After that proclamation, she proceeds to tell me that they had thought about running a hose in the window so they could use that to flush the toilet instead of the buckets and I ask, how could she tell me that and still think we’re not rednecks. Thought the family would roll overboard laughing. Eventually we head for home. I’ll be in PA for about a month. It’ll take me that long to unpack all the crap from my car.