Wicked Mother Nature by Dee S. Knight #WickedWedmesdau #ghost
WICKED WEDNESDAY
Please join me in welcoming back one of my favorite and frequent guests, Dee S. Knight. Wicked comes in all forms and Dee has a fun take on wicked today with an exciting true life adventure.
Instead of focusing on a wicked person or even a character, I'd like to tell you about wicked Mother Nature. She'll pull a fast one and there everyone is, made humble by snow or rain, ice or heat. There is an old commercial that famously intoned, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!" Well, it's not nice for her to fool us, either.
Back in our trucking days, we had to drive through some truly wicked weather. I remember once in Montana, realizing the highway I was driving on was covered in black ice. Snow storms were common. We outran a dust storm in Texas once, and lost our air conditioning in horrendous heat and humidity. Through it all, we had to keep going to deliver the freight.
But once, coming into Chicago, we heard about a storm approaching from the west. The snow was a late one, and sure to be wet and heavy. It was early morning and still dark. Hubby was driving the stretch on I-80, just as Illinois meets Indiana. An accident and detour held us up for nearly an hour, and before we knew it, the storm caught up with us while we were driving the Indiana Turnpike.
I woke up as it turned light, and crawled out of the sleeper. "Look at that idiot," I said. "That trucker thinks he can park in the ramp to the service center. And look at those guys, just parking on the shoulder. What's going on?"
"A storm came in from the west. What I didn't know is, another storm came up from the south. And we're right in the middle of the mess."
Ahead, I could see the toll booth that marked the end of the Indiana toll road. A couple of miles past that, we would be on the Ohio Turnpike. Best thing about the turnpikes? They always kept the roads clear. Sure, they cost money, but it was worth it. Right?
We slowly came to a stop, about six trucks back from paying the toll. And then… We were stopped for sure. Word came back that Ohio had closed its road. What??That was why those "idiots" had been stopped and parked strangely at the service center.
While the two storms met up and churned everything around us, we sat in a row of trucks, in the cab of ours. On the second day, they "let" us pay our toll and move to the snow-drifted area between the two turnpikes. We sat while it snowed. We sat while the storm ended and the sun shone through gray clouds. We sat day and we sat night. We sat there in no man's land for three days and four nights. It felt biblical.
A restaurant about a mile away (walk to the fence separating the toll road from the rest of the road, climb said fence, climb an embankment to the road and go another three-quarters of a mile, all through deep snow) was snowed in, so the waitress and cook who couldn't make it home had a bunch of truckers for customers. For three days. I'll bet they were thrilled.
Finally, through more flurries, Ohio opened its toll road—single lanes in each direction. After a day's drive that normally took three or four hours, we passed into Pennsylvania. Say glory! There was next to no snow! The real kicker? Had we stayed on the Indiana toll road instead of moving through, they would have let us off for free. Any trucks stuck on the turnpike did not have to pay the toll to get off. So we had to pay both Indiana and Ohio and that's no small amount of money! Thank you, Mother Nature!
I featured some wild foggy weather in my paranormal erotic romance, Passionate Destiny. The unexpected—and unexplained—freaky fog meant the hero, Aaron, had to stay at the heroine's house that night. Oh, darn.
Please join me in welcoming back one of my favorite and frequent guests, Dee S. Knight. Wicked comes in all forms and Dee has a fun take on wicked today with an exciting true life adventure.Instead of focusing on a wicked person or even a character, I'd like to tell you about wicked Mother Nature. She'll pull a fast one and there everyone is, made humble by snow or rain, ice or heat. There is an old commercial that famously intoned, "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!" Well, it's not nice for her to fool us, either.
Back in our trucking days, we had to drive through some truly wicked weather. I remember once in Montana, realizing the highway I was driving on was covered in black ice. Snow storms were common. We outran a dust storm in Texas once, and lost our air conditioning in horrendous heat and humidity. Through it all, we had to keep going to deliver the freight.
But once, coming into Chicago, we heard about a storm approaching from the west. The snow was a late one, and sure to be wet and heavy. It was early morning and still dark. Hubby was driving the stretch on I-80, just as Illinois meets Indiana. An accident and detour held us up for nearly an hour, and before we knew it, the storm caught up with us while we were driving the Indiana Turnpike.
I woke up as it turned light, and crawled out of the sleeper. "Look at that idiot," I said. "That trucker thinks he can park in the ramp to the service center. And look at those guys, just parking on the shoulder. What's going on?"
"A storm came in from the west. What I didn't know is, another storm came up from the south. And we're right in the middle of the mess."
Ahead, I could see the toll booth that marked the end of the Indiana toll road. A couple of miles past that, we would be on the Ohio Turnpike. Best thing about the turnpikes? They always kept the roads clear. Sure, they cost money, but it was worth it. Right?
We slowly came to a stop, about six trucks back from paying the toll. And then… We were stopped for sure. Word came back that Ohio had closed its road. What??That was why those "idiots" had been stopped and parked strangely at the service center.
While the two storms met up and churned everything around us, we sat in a row of trucks, in the cab of ours. On the second day, they "let" us pay our toll and move to the snow-drifted area between the two turnpikes. We sat while it snowed. We sat while the storm ended and the sun shone through gray clouds. We sat day and we sat night. We sat there in no man's land for three days and four nights. It felt biblical.
A restaurant about a mile away (walk to the fence separating the toll road from the rest of the road, climb said fence, climb an embankment to the road and go another three-quarters of a mile, all through deep snow) was snowed in, so the waitress and cook who couldn't make it home had a bunch of truckers for customers. For three days. I'll bet they were thrilled.
Finally, through more flurries, Ohio opened its toll road—single lanes in each direction. After a day's drive that normally took three or four hours, we passed into Pennsylvania. Say glory! There was next to no snow! The real kicker? Had we stayed on the Indiana toll road instead of moving through, they would have let us off for free. Any trucks stuck on the turnpike did not have to pay the toll to get off. So we had to pay both Indiana and Ohio and that's no small amount of money! Thank you, Mother Nature!
I featured some wild foggy weather in my paranormal erotic romance, Passionate Destiny. The unexpected—and unexplained—freaky fog meant the hero, Aaron, had to stay at the heroine's house that night. Oh, darn.
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