Back from Bahaba

Now I know what it’s like to drive almost 1,000 miles in a day. That’s how far it is from Bar Harbor, Maine to Christiansburg, VA, which is where I arrived at around 10 p.m. on October 26 en route to Greenville. Got up the next morning and made excellent time until I was about 18 miles above Charlotte, NC on I-77. Traffic jam. But the 2008 Honda Civic EX is a sufficiently sweet ride to make traffic jams bearable. And when the interstate is clear and the breeze is blowing through the sun roof on a bright, cool day in the mountains, the American love affair with cars begins to make sense. Great handling, great sound system and … no kidding … 40 mpg. Which is why I sneer at the hybrid car ads that make such a big deal of 45 mpg. Where’s the national network of hydrogen fuel stations and the mandate that all new cars be hydrogen-powered by 2015? I guess in the same storage facility with the Tesla coils and whatever they harvested from Roswell.

Now it’s time to send American Express a big honking check to cover the cost of 10 days away from home plus recovery from the hard drive crash that occurred yesterday.