At 1:00 am this morning, we lost power. My wife uses a CPAP machine, so she got very little sleep without it. When I got up to pee, I walked into the edge of our bathroom door and got a nice cut above my right eye. The power was still out this morning and the house was 62 degrees. We had planned to leave for our son and DIL’s new home in Franklin, TN at 7:00 am. But, with the power off, we didn’t want to leave until it came back on, which the power company estimated would be 11:00 am. So we waited. At 10:00 am they revised their estimated repair time to 11:30 PM! That’s it...our daughter and SIL came over with coolers and we packed up the fridge and freezer and they took the food over to their house and we left for TN at 12:00 noon. 30 minutes into the trip, we got a text that power had been restored, so the wait and packing up the food was wasted effort.
The traffic in Columbus was a nightmare, as usual. But, the 2 hour traffic jam 20 miles past Columbs was a real treat! There had been a traffic accident involving a semi. The delay there meant that we hit Cincinnati at rush hour. Once we got past Cincinnati traffic thinned out some. Of course, driving the interstate in the dark at 75 mph through the heart of deer county was not fun. We finally made it here to Franklin, TN at 11:30 pm Eastern time. 11 1/2 hours of driving for what is supposed to be an 8 1/2 hour trip.
My wife has made this drive twice before and she’s never done it in less than 10 hour because of the traffic around Nashville, Louisville, Cincinnati, and Columbus. So, when we go back home on Tuesday, we’re going another route...I-40 east to Knoxville, I-81 north to Wytheville, and I-77 home. Google says it’s 1:15 minutes longer, but the traffic should flow more smoothly and no big cities to deal with. I’d bet it will take less time. I’m glad this day is over!