Saturday March 3rd, 2012 - Canton, OH/Michigan City, IN I’ve had notoriously rotten timing when it comes to driving through bad weather before, but this week sets a new standard. I’m about to trade my car for an ark and start loading it with pairs of animals so I can get home in one piece. This is not like I can ever remember. Yesterday, I made it from Christiansburg, VA to Canton, OH. Christiansburg is the next town over from Blacksburg, where I worked on Wednesday night. It’s out of the way, and not convenient for me to head due north which I needed to do. I had to make a decision. It was raining yet again, even though of course it had been sunny and clear the one day I didn’t have a long drive to make. It couldn’t have been any nicer. Too bad. That was then, this is now. It was back to ugly, and I didn’t want to stray far from interstates if possible. Backtracking on US 460 the way I came was not appealing at all. That was a rough little stretch, and it would have taken me back to I-77 north through West Virginia. Not only is that a rough stretch in the rain, it’s a toll road. I’m a cheap bastard when it comes to those and will do all I can to avoid them whenever possible. I decided to take a different route. I-81 heads north and east, going through Roanoke and into Maryland. I wanted to take it to I-64 and go west to US 19 and up through Morgantown, WV, where the weekend I was originally booked for was scheduled to take place. There was no direct route to get there. I’m very old school when it comes to navigating my way around back roads. I never had a need for a GPS in all the years when I started comedy, and I survived. I learned to read a map, and still use them today. Rand McNally can count on me to be a customer for life. I saw a shortcut on my map that looked to cut off about 50 miles between I-81 and I-64, so I decided to roll the dice and take it. It was Virginia state highway 311, and in spite of a torrential downpour I thought it would save me a significant amount of time and miles. It was fine for the first four or five miles, but then highway 311 turned into ‘The Devil’s Detour‘. I’ve never seen such nasty hair pin turns, and it was sheer stress climbing up and over one slippery mountain after the next. My knuckles were snow white, and there was a conga line of impatient locals on my back bumper who were used to conditions like this. It was only about 75 actual miles, but it felt like I drove across Jupiter. I just had a brake job on my car, but I bet I need another one. I was stomping on the brake until my right leg was out of blood to avoid sliding down the mountain road like some hillbilly tobogganer. The rain continued to pound, and I kept driving until I couldn’t see anymore. I was able to make it to Canton, OH, where I got a room to get some rest. I also stopped there to see my old friend from Milwaukee Tim Marszalkowski, aka ‘Polish Thunder’. Tim is a great friend, and has a heart bigger than his 6’5” frame. I loved getting a chance to see him, but I want to get home. Maybe in hindsight I’ll see the lesson I’m supposed to learn from this.
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