Hey--FIRE!

We started our dark-and-early...4:10am central time...it was dark and then as we proceeded on our journey it also became quite foggy. We were both glad when the fog lifted. We again went the back roads to get to I-40. We had a pretty sunrise through the fog. I slept for a good part of this trip. I didn't get to bed all that early as I was doing "last minute" things (no matter how ready I think I am, I find plenty of those "last minute" things that take longer than I thought that they would), and, then Woody woke up earlier than he usually does for our trips...so I caught up on my sleep in the car. By sleeping the trip went by quite quickly! Not long after we got on I-81 we found out that they were blasting ahead at 11:30am...exactly the time that we should have gotten to that point on the interstate. It was going to be an hour delay. Just what Woody didn't want. I looked at the map and couldn't find a way to go around and miss the delay. So we just kept going. In a little while there was one of those lighted signs that give you a message that is hard to read since you are going at interstate speeds! But we were able to read it enough that it looked like the blasting time had been changed to 12:30pm...we would be long gone before they blasted! Phew! Our next warning came over the radio...listening to a DC station that gave road condition updates/warnings. They gave one for I-66, which we were on at the time of the warning...traffic going west (we were going east) was being rerouted due to a truckload of hay that had caught on fire. The only way they could get the fire out was to spread the hay across the interstate! Tonight's blog picture shows the fire after it was under control. They were still spraying water on the hay when we passed. Can you imagine the mess when it came time to pick up all that wet hay?! And, the mess of rerouting all the traffic...we saw the cars going over several overpasses...bumper-to-bumper. I'm soooooooo glad that we were going east! We were slowed down for a period of time...probably due to rubbernecking. Once we got past the fire we continued on at a good clip considering we were an hour into their rush hour (in the DC area evening rush hour is from 3pm to 7pm). Our exit for the Beltway was the one with hardly any traffic and we continued on at the best clip that we ever have on the Beltway at rush hour. It was easy to get off the Beltway...that exit is often backed up. Off that road we took the first exit and were headed to NIH. We easily went through the security gate (due to our badges) at NIH and found a good parking place. We got our bags out of the car and headed inside NIH to see when the next shuttle to our hotel would be there. We were told that it had just left and there would be another one in twenty minutes so we settled in for our first wait...with books in hand! I happened to look up and saw a shuttle from our hotel...another hotel guest had called them to pick him up so we joined him andthus probably only had to wait 5 min., if that, for a shuttle! We arrived at the hotel and quickly checked in and walked into our room on the 12th floor at 5:10pm eastern (4:10 central)...exactly 12 hours from the start of the trip! We drove 644 miles. Good to be ensconced on Pooks Hill, once again. Tomorrow lab work and scan and MRI day for Woody.