3206 Jousting with big rigs

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

You can keep going long after you think you can't.

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Hmmm. Somebody from Old Bridge is reading. Hello. 'Fess up. Was it the cousin connection?

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I drove north Saturday afternoon. Had dinner with some Mensa folks, and then went on to the old house. Worked Sunday cleaning it out - filled more garbage bags. There was so much recycle paper I didn't want to store it there, so I brought it on south with me. I'll take it to the local recycle center.

I also loaded some stuff to move down here, but not a lot. I think my concentration should be on throwing crap out right now.

I drove back late, got home a bit after 11 pm.

It was a good fast drive. There are few cars on the NYS Thruway or the Garden State Parkway late at night. It's mostly just big trucks.

The truckers and I did have one spot of excitement. It was somewhere just north of Newburgh (around mile marker 71), in the 2-lanes-south section. I was in the left lane coming up on a line of four semis in the right lane going up a slight hill, and was passing the hind-most truck when suddenly the three trucks ahead of him started swerving and whipping back and forth. There was something big and dark in the road ahead.

It was a little to the right of the center line, and the trucks were swerving right and left to miss it. The truck I was passing couldn't swerve left - I was there! I was afraid to slow down, because if he whipped, I'd be right by the tail of his trailer, so I slid further left and hit the gas and almost climbed the bumper of the truck ahead of him, which was now in my lane. The guy I'd been passing swung right, off the road, then back on. He's darn lucky it didn't cause him to jackknife, hitting the shoulder at that speed.

It was a big overstuffed upholstered chair! Windsor, from the look of it. Must have fallen off the back of a truck. It was tipped forward on its top and seat with its legs pointed toward us, like it was offering a jousting challenge.

Everybody slowed down to below the speed limit until we got to the rest area five miles later. Nobody wanted to be the first to find the matching sofa. All the truckers pulled into the rest area. To change their underwear, I guess.
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