Bad Weather Archives

August 19, 2013

The Rains Came

After all the fits and starts of Day One of my Return to Florida Journey, I was hoping things would go better Sunday. I saw it was raining, so I slept in to give it a chance to pass through.

It was late, so I skipped breakfast so I could stop at Dave’s Modern Tavern atop Monteagle Pass for their incredible lobster bisque and Oink Moo Burger. It was as good as ever.

Traffic was light going through Atlanta. I don’t think we ever came to a creep and crawl full stop through the whole town. Just about the time I hit the Macon bypass, the sky opened up. Southbound traffic was moving OK, but I saw the northbound lanes backing up and emergency vehicles headed that way. I took that as a sign to stop at the next rest area for a 22-minute nap to let the bad weather move on.

Weird storm cloud

Not too far down the road, this strange cloud came up. Fog was swirling out of the trees and the leading edge of this squall was white, not black. A couple of miles down the road, it was monsoon city.

Maybe somebody can explain to me why people drive with their four-way flashers on. I admit to turning mine on if there is a sudden slowdown in traffic, but I turn them back off as soon as I see the vehicles behind me are slowing. Three lanes of idiot drivers kept blinking away for four or five miles, making it impossible to figure out if they were braking or just blinking.

I hit moderate to heavy rain off and on all the way to Florida, but traffic was light and my Rain-X kept the windshield clear.

It’ll be good to get home Monday night. I wonder if the locks have been changed?

March 10, 2013March 10, 2013

On the Road to Florida

I had to pull out of Cape on March 4 in order to make it back to West Palm Beach by March 6. As usual, I got a late start. No departure would be complete without taking a final photo before backing out of the driveway.

I think I’m getting better at these photos. Either my arm is getting longer or Mother and I are shrinking in our old age, which makes it possible to get us both in the photo.

Headed across the bridge

This is an appropriate bookend to the trip. I posted a photo when Friend Jan made me turn around to get the bridge and the moon in a picture the night we pulled into Cape.

Atlanta skyline and traffic (what else?)

I left Cape in snow flurries, and woke up in Manchester, Tenn., to rain. By the time I got to Monteagle Pass, the rain had turned into a monsoon and the winds were threatening to blow me across two lanes of traffic. It was hard enough to stay on the road in my Odyssey van. I don’t know how an empty 18-wheeler could have handled it.

I hoped to get an Oink Moo Burger at Dave’s Modern Tavern, but it wasn’t open. A woman in a nearby business recommended an Italian joint just down the road. Their pizza was excellent. Just as I was switching from my eating glasses to my seeing glasses to pay the bill, the left side of the frame came apart and dropped my lens on the carpet. Fortunately, there was a CVS drugstore next door where I could buy a replacement screw. A helpful women at the checkout counter put the screw back in for me since I couldn’t see to do it.

All of this piddling around put me into Atlanta at rush hour. I hadn’t planned to take another photo of a traffic jam in my favorite city, but we were stopped and the skyline was interesting. I think all the cold weather may have caused the lube in the camera mirror mechanism to stiffen up. I had a few frames with dark tops a couple of days ago, and the gremlin struck again here. While I wouldn’t mind some kind of out-of-this-world General Sherman coming down to devour Atlanta, that was simply not happening here.

Crawfish at Bubba Jax

I get odd cravings on the road. For some reason, I had a hankering for Dairy Queen’s chicken strips with white gravy and a Blizzard for desert. A sign promised at DQ in Valdosta, but I couldn’t spot it. As luck would have it, I opted to make a U-turn into Bubba Jax Crab Shack. It was a nondescript kind of place, but there was a fair number of cars in the lot, so I decided to take a chance. A chalkboard at the entrance said they had a special on crayfish.

I love Cajun forms of crawfish, so I placed an order without asking how they were served. While waiting for my order to arrive, I saw plate after plate of lightly battered fried oysters and onion rings walk by. I was wondering if I had made a mistake.

When the server placed a bunch of red shells in front of me, I was sure I had. “This is embarrassing,” I confessed. “I’ve shucked oysters, peeled shrimp and cracked crabs, but I’ve never tackled crawdads before. How do I attack these beasts?”

She said, “I’m not exactly sure. I know you eat the tails and some folks suck out the insides from the top, but they’re not exactly my thing.”

When she came back, I suggested that she put these on the menu as the Dieter’s Special “because you burn more calories peeling them you gain in consuming the critters.” I got better and faster, but I sure wish I had ordered the oysters. I’m going to put crayfish on the list of things like crunchy rock shrimp I’m going to avoid as being too much work.

Lunch with the grandsons

While I was out of town, Grandson Graham turned 2, and Elliot was added to the family on February 4. Parents Adam and Carly asked if I wanted to meet them for lunch at a hamburger joint on March 7. Are you kidding? This was my first glimpse of Elliot. I’d have shot more photos except that he was sound asleep. I learned with Graham that you do NOT want to have a screaming awake baby on your hands. I had forgotten they don’t come with a mute switch.

Graham’s a big boy now

There’s nothing like having a newborn in the family to make a two-year-old look like a big boy. It’s incredible how much more he’s talking than when I last saw him about six weeks ago. Grandson Malcolm, who is eight, is almost as tall as his grandmother, and looks like he’s going to be asking for the car keys in another week or two.

Graham, even after getting a spit-shine from his mother, is still wearing a significant portion of his lunch. (You can, as always, click on the photos to make them larger.)

February 21, 2013

Ready for Snow, Ice

By the time most of you read this, we’ll know if these trucks wasted a lot of time and salt Tuesday prepping the roads for what might, or might not, be a big deal.

A Southeast Missourian weather blog summarized the situation:

100% chance of… something

Posted Wednesday, February 20, 2013, at 5:21 PM

The forecast continues to deteriorate, with a “near 100 percent” chance of precipitation now forecast for tomorrow. But what kind of precip? That’s the question.

Earlier forecasts suggested that the temperature would rise above freezing during the afternoon, hitting 34°F or so at Cape Girardeau, and melting any snow/sleet/ice/whatever that accumulated during the morning. In that scenario, Winter Storm “Cupid” would be mostly a non-event.

Now the forecast has dropped a few degrees, projecting that the temperature will hover around 30° or 31° all afternoon. Surprise! That could produce a drastic change in the severity of the storm.

As usual, Southeast Missouri is straddling the dividing line between “no big deal” and “a huge mess.” The official forecast is leaning toward “a huge mess”, but it could go either way:

THURSDAY…A CHANCE OF SNOW AND SLEET POSSIBLY MIXED WITH FREEZING RAIN IN THE MORNING…THEN FREEZING RAIN IN THE AFTERNOON. SNOW AND SLEET ACCUMULATION UP TO 2 INCHES. ICE ACCUMULATION AROUND ONE QUARTER OF AN INCH. HIGHS IN THE LOWER 30S. EAST WINDS 10 TO 15 MPH. CHANCE OF PRECIPITATION NEAR 100 PERCENT.

When did this become normal?

Snow was a big deal when I was a kid. When did multiple big snows or sleet storms become the norm?

February 1, 2013

Snow in St. Louis

I decided to stay over in St. Louis Tuesday night because it was snowing a little and I didn’t want to run into icy conditions on the way south. Ironically enough, it was snowing harder Wednesday afternoon than it had the night before.

I was running low on gas, so I stopped to fill up before getting on the road. While watching dollars get sucked into my tank, I noticed white pellets on my dark coat. This isn’t too bad, I thought.

It was coming down a little harder when I spotted the store on the right. Wife Lila has a birthday, Valentine’s Day and the anniversary of our first date coming up in February, and I saw something that might get me off the hook for being in Missouri all of February. It’ll be our secret, though. Don’t tell her.

Snow filled my mirrors

While I was parked at the store, the wind and snow were blowing up from behind the car. I came out to find my rearview mirrors packed with snow and the snow starting to stick on the ground. It was also clinging to the sides of the trees. (Like always, click on the photos to make them larger.)

Hoping school would be called off

Seeing the school bus pass made me remember the old days.

Many a night I’d get up to look at the sky against the streetlight outside the bedroom window to see if a predicted snow had arrived. School officials back then, knowing that most of the students walked to school uphill and barefooted, figured we were tough enough to handle two or three feet of snow, so classes were rarely cancelled.

Of course, that would set me to stomping around the house railing, “What are they trying to do, kill us?”

Not quite sticking to road

Even though the snow Wednesday was wetter than Tuesday’s, it wasn’t sticking on the road yet. I saw salt trucks out later, but they may have already made a pass.

Swirling snow

The strong side wind and the rush of traffic made the snow slither and swirl making me think of a ghostly white snake running in front of me.

Gee, no kidding

The helpful highway sign suggests that we “Watch for Changing Road Conditions.” Like we’d never have thought of that on our own.

The snow stopped at Pevely, just like someone had thrown a switch. There was quite a bit on the ground around St. Genevieve, but the middle of the trip was precipitation free. About 35 miles north of Cape, around Perryville, it started coming down hard again and continued all the way into Cape. That’s funny because Perryville was always the weather system dividing line: if there was snow in the region, it usually STOPPED at Perryville.

I’d have shot more pictures, but I had forgotten how cold weather will drain camera batteries. I can usually shoot 500 or 600 pictures between charges, but not on this trip.