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long drive
Jan. 3rd, 2022 05:25 amvia https://ift.tt/3sRqQ2o
for the record it takes almost exactly the same amount of time to go up thru western PA and come up 219 to come back from Baltimore as it took to go down via 90->390-> wherever that gets you. So. Avoiding the Thruway is possible!
Ironically enough we were only inspired to try this to avoid the snow. i know! Drive up thru ski country and the Snow Belt? But from the weather maps, the lake effect seemed to be mostly in a long corridor right along the Thruway, so like. It’s easy enough to avoid lake effect if you just don’t go where the wind is. Normally the wind angles down southward, that’s why that’s the snow belt, but when it doesn’t, it’s perfectly save to drive there.
Unless the wind shifts. Which it didn’t. So we left Maryland in 55F fog, and arrived in Buffalo at 20F ice, and I still haven’t chipped my car out. Dude said he wasn’t going in today so I just took his. Mine is like. Encased in ice.
It’s convenient that it’s cold though, BIL gave me a pile of nicely-packaged venison since he has too much in his freezer now, but Farmsister had just given me a bunch of beef from their last cow processing, and I do not have a chest freezer, and my regular lil freezer is kind of full of…. I’m not sure what. So I need to do a cleanout and rearrange, and meanwhile it’s 15F and I have a cooler sitting outside with venison frozen solid in it. Very nice.
(I’d been saying on Discord I couldn’t live anywhere that never let me use the outdoors for cold storage at least occasionally. That, and killing off all the bugs. When I mentioned this to my sister she had a third thing that winter gets you but I forget now. Anyway as we drive into our next whiteout I’ll chant my lil mantra of porch fridge, kills bugs to remind myself why anyone would want to live somewhere like this.
This incidentally marks the first time this winter I’ve located my winter coat. I did wear it today. I do own a down parka. I should’ve dug it out a week ago for that COVID test where I waited two hours in the parking lot, but I didn’t know I was gonna wait two hours.
By the way. It is now seven days and I never received the results of that test. Thank heavens I did not need them! The rapid test served my purpose.
God, we’re all fucked, we’re all so fucked.
Anyway I’m back at work and I’m just exhausted about it. I might take a couple of days off sometime this month. I’ve taken tons of days off work but like. None for me, and anyway there’s not that much work for me to do here, I’ll be caught up with the post-Christmas WTFery in no time.
I need a day to sit at home. I need like, three days; two to sit around and feel guilty, and one to actually do some shit. I did manage to get a lot done last night– I got out of the car and immediately made dinner, since it was 3pm and we hadn’t eaten since 7am, and then I did all the dishes from dinner, and then I put together a loaf of bread to rise for today’s dinner, and started rearranging the freezer, and then Dude went grocery shopping, and I pre-packed today’s lunch and got the meat out of the freezer (well out of the cooler in the driveway) for this week’s meals (BIL for some reason packages everything in 2-lb increments which is an insane amount of meat for two people but I have a plan, at least for this package), and anyway we’re having hangover soup and venison hot dish this week because it’s fucking cold and I need to expand my horizons, culinarily. (Your picture was not posted)
