Into The Belly Of The Beast

  Well friends, we're finally back on the road after many months. Although it was great to be near the kids for an extended period it's been a drag not being close. The house sits we were able to engage in the GTA were far enough away from them to be inconvenient and, after living so close for their entire lives, just plain odd. All the sits had many positive aspects but they weren't close enough to be comfortable.

  With my part in the renovations done it was time to get on our horses and get out of Dodge. City, that is. Not Dodge, the car. I've never been a fan of Chrysler products. Except the minivans. They're ok. But I digress. The open road was calling so we answered. When I say, "we answered", I mean we responded by leaving. We didn't actually answer. It's not like I stood on the road and whispered, "I hear you". That would be silly. C'mon. So, rather than say, "we answered", I'll say we got in the little red (orange) car and drove south into Trump country.

  We were committed to being in Florida by midday January 7 and I had arranged two motel stays so we'd have a relaxing trip with time for Atlas Obscura distractions along the way. Of course, the night before we left CNN informed us "the storm of the decade" was going to intrude on our plans. We decided to leave Bradford at stupid o'clock on Sunday morning to get ahead of it. It almost worked.

  As we approached Cincinnati on I-75 the weather closed in. Now, being a seasoned winter driver, a couple of inches of the white stuff isn't going to make me nervous.

  Back in the 1980's, while driving to a ski hill in Australia with my sister-in-law Wendy, we were stopped by the local constabulary who commanded us to install tire chains before going any further. You see, a half-inch of snow had fallen on the road that morning making it too  dangerous to navigate with regular summer tires. When I showed him my Canadian drivers' license he said, "Oh. You can go ahead." I had the same feeling when we crossed the Ohio river into Kentucky.

  The one hour trip across the mountains to Lexington became almost three as we crawled behind the world's slowest snowplows and avoided cars sliding sideways or spinning their wheels on every climb. By the time we reached Lex a total of five inches had fallen. Where we come from that happens four or five times every winter and we deal with it easily. This wasn't. Imagine driving through a snowstorm surrounded by a cars with driving school signs on their roofs. Now you get the picture.

  When we arrived at our motel I texted Jen to let her know we'd survived. She told me I deserved pizza and a beer. Good idea, except Lexingtonians were treating the weather as an extinction-level event. Everything was closed. Streets were deserted. We went out looking for dinner and our choices were reduced to a stale gas station sandwich or the McDonalds' drive-thru. Mickey D's won although the food we received was cold and tasteless. We should have travelled with a can of SPAM and some melba toast. It would have been tastier. No pizza and beer for Mikey.

  When we awoke Monday we found the car coated in three quarters of an inch of ice. Think William H. Macy with his ice scraper in Fargo. The Weather Channel was calling it a "weather emergency". Red screen. Lots of talking heads. The only weather-speak they didn't use was "Snowmageddon". They're saving that for February.

  I let the car warm up for ten minutes and easily cleared enough of the ice to get us out of there while the locals looked on, shaking their heads and marveling at our backwoods Canadian audacity. We loaded our beaver coats, maple syrup and birchbark canoe and launched ourselves out of the parking lot/skating rink, heading south, leaving the disaster area in our rear view mirror.

  I read later schools were to remain closed until Wednesday. What would these people do if they encountered real snow? We exited the storm area an hour later and, with temperatures on the rise, aimed ourselves at Florida's warm, sunny skies and sandy beaches.

  With ideal driving conditions ahead of us it was time for Atlas Obscura. There wasn't much. It looked like our best bet was to stop in Knoxville, TN where a giant Rubik's Cube had been erected for the 1982 World's Fair. We didn't find it as it's located somewhere inside the Convention Center and most of it was inaccessible while people milled around removing Christmas decorations. We did see a giant disco ball on a stick, so it wasn't a total loss.

  The Atlas also told us about a nearby junkyard that was littered with old wrecks that had  trees growing through them. It was said to be a very dramatic landscape worthy of a lot of Instagram-worthy photos. Also, it cost twenty bucks to see it. We gave it a miss.

  That night we stopped in, what we thought was, a quiet little burg named Cordele. We didn't know it at the time but the town was named after the daughter of a railroad magnate. It was also the only place along I-75 in Georgia offering passable motel rooms for less than $150. Ok, time for that pizza and beer I didn't get the previous evening.

  If you remember how our first house sitting excursion started, this was a repeat. We had left on our grand adventure and aimed ourselves at Delphos, OH, where we had once eaten incredible Mexican food, only to find everything closed because it was Memorial Day. We settled for Pizza Hut as it was the only thing available.

  This time, no pizza. The only pizza joint in town was Pizza Hut. Been there, done that, not doing it again. We settled for non-pizza, managed a beer, and headed back for a quiet night's sleep. Except not.

  We found out why Cordele's motel rooms were cheaper. It turns out Cordele, GA is a hub for many of the railroads that service the southeast US. Eighty freight trains a day pass through there, an average of more than three per hour. Twenty-four hours a day. Seven days a week. Each one blares it's sleep-inhibiting horn as it passes. Wikipedia also told us Cordele has the only railroad "diamond" in the South. People come from all over to see it. Not us. Give me a giant fork or a plane on a stick any day. Anyway, we almost managed a night's sleep and focused on the warm, sunny skies and sandy beaches that awaited us.

  Oh. About that warmth. Remember the giant, once-in-a-decade storm we drove through? Well, its cold air was following us. As we drove south the weather forecast for our destination changed, dropping 20F. Not so warm. Still sunny. Warmer than if we'd stayed in Canada but not warm.

  So here we are, safe and sound in Venice, FL, although not warm. The beach is still sandy and the sun is still shining but it's not lie-on-the-beach warm. It's more like you-still-need-a-jacket warm. I'm sure it will get better but the long-term forecast currently calls for more of the same for the next ten days. As I said, it's warmer than what we left behind us so no complaining. But it could be so much better.

  We have two cats to hang out with here but you'd never know it as they seem somewhat reserved, preferring to avoid us even when food is offered. They'll warm up to us but, if the weather is any indicator, it might take a while.

  Oh, last night I had my pizza and beer. Frozen pizza from Walmart but pizza just the same. I didn't want Jen to be disappointed.

  We're here for three weeks before moving across the state to another Florida sit. It should give us plenty of time for some deep-sea fishing, kayaking, golf, beachcombing and, hopefully, some of those buck-a-shuck oysters and two dollar Yeunglings we found on the Atlantic coast a year ago.

We have our priorities.