Scary drive.....

Fun and scary weekend.

Hit the Taste of Big Apple on Friday night before meeting up with the wild Starlight riders at Monks. Fun was had by all. The usuals were there, The Mayor, Cycle SD, One Speed, Double G, the kErnEl, Snakebite with wife, Russell the Muscle, and me. It was a good time. Stories were told, beer was had and fun ensued.

Saturday morning was a fun breakfast with friends at Dean-O's. Then out and about looking for a UV filter and CF cards for the new camera arriving today (can't wait!).

Saturday afternoon became REAL interesting. We decided that we were going to go up to the NSU (Northern State University-Aberdeen, SD) basketball game. They were having a reception for Coach Don Meyer. We also decided that Abe would ride along with us in case we decided to just stay in Aberdeen in stead of driving back late on Saturday night. So, we took off heading north on I-29. Things were good but the wind was bad and of course coming out of the northwest. I think we might have gotten the SUV up to 65mph once. As we are driving there were people just FLYING up the road. There were patches of snow on the indy from where the wind had been blowing and started to drifting on the road. We slowed down a lot when we got to those areas because I was thinking about black ice. SO we cruised along and of course people were HUGELY over driving the conditions and then we saw vehicles in the ditch. Looked to have just happened. Guessing these people had their cruise controls on which is a huge no-no in those conditions. So we get up the road a bit further and started to notice a lot more vehicles in the ditch. Ok, so most of you know going out in snow does not bother me as long as you can still see so I was fine, AT THIS POINT. We just slowed down and were going around 45-50 mph people are STILL flying by us. There were a couple times that there were flashing lights from plows, tow trucks and Highway Patrol in the passing lane on the indy with cars in the median and of course people driving FAST in the passing lane coming up on these accidents. Kris's comment at one point was, "We are going to see someone die!" We saw a bad roll over that involved an SUV that was still on it's side. We had slowed WAY, WAY down by then maybe doing 40mph. The road looked clear but then the back end of the SUV did a hoolie-wobble and then another and that was it, it was black ice. We turned around at the Elkton Sinai exit drove and headed home. At the rest area south of Brookings I decided to hit the rural roads instead of I-29. I just thought it best to get off the road where people were just plain being stupid! 106.2 miles and 2.5 hours later we made it home safe and sound.

I did feel bad we didn't make it to Coach Meyers reception / game with all the finagling Kris had to do to get rid of her pager that night but we both knew turning around was the right thing to do. Amazing how animals can tell when you are a bit nervous. Abe was pretty much watching everything while we were on the interstate. He would not settle down. Once we got on the rural roads he settled right down and went to sleep. Wish I could have!