1/6/10

Do you remember Santa's Secret Shop from elementary school? I got to buy something from them once. I must have been about six or seven years old at the time. My mother gave me five dollars, apparently with the understanding that I would get a Christmas present for my little sister. Something got lost in translation though and I bought myself a little Spirograph kit instead. Mom wasn't too happy with me, but what are you gonna do? I was a kid.

Before last month's trip up to Boyne Falls, my sister gave my little niece some money to buy Christmas gifts from Santa's Secret Shop. She follows directions better than I did as a kid, it turns out. Everyone enjoyed a good chuckle when my brothers and I unwrapped our gifts and saw that she bought the exact same thing for each of us - a little ice scraper with a Santa sleeve over the handle. Most of you are aware that we live in Michigan, so we all have ice scrapers in our cars, but it was a nice gift anyway. Most six-year-olds wouldn't have been quite as practical. I tossed my scraper in my duffel bag and forgot about it.

When I got ready to leave the service plaza today, I looked over and saw that my mirror was covered with snow. I grabbed a paper towel and wiped away the snow, only to find that there was a solid sheet of ice underneath. Well hell, what are we gonna do about this? I glanced around the cab of my truck in search of something useful and then remembered the gift-opening scene in front of the fireplace at our rental house. I checked my duffel bag and, sure enough, thanks Maddy...


I sent that picture to my sister, so I'm sure my niece is feeling pretty clever right about now.

The snow never turned out to be the hassle that I thought it would today. Through the rest of Ohio and the first half of Pennsylvania it was snowing, but the roads had been thoroughly salted and everything was going fine. Those turnpikes are, generally speaking, some of the best maintained roads anywhere during the winter. As I got further to the east the snow even stopped and the temperature crept up into the 30's for a while. Not bad at all.

After a fuel stop and a couple of breaks, I decided that it was late enough to head into the Philly suburbs and set up shop for the night. There seems to be more activity around here than I recall from last time, but I'm parked in the same out-of-the-way spot and I don't appear to be bothering anyone. Beauty.

Since I had this exact run in September and it was followed the next day by some regional northeast nonsense, here's hoping for a change of pace to welcome in 2010. I can only assume that there is more crappy weather coming tomorrow, so something toward Miami for the weekend might not be so bad. A guy can always dream.