veronica_rich | Nobody tells you HOW to avoid these things

Well, you can see what I woke up to outside my hotel room yesterday morning. Close enough for the black smoke to billow and roil over the interstate as I was leaving later in the day, not close enough for a good photo. And geez, the smell ...

Of course the first thing my mother had to ask me about when I called to let her know when I would be arriving. Several years ago, she told me I should come with a warning label, and a friendly call-ahead to wherever I'm going so the natives know to prepare. So far in the past ten years, I've visited places that immediately after my arrival experienced a hurricane; tornado; earthquake; blizzard (these last two were very near each other and in a part of the country not given to excessive snows); and now, oil fire. (I was even in China when the American spy plane went down in 2001.) I expect somebody else's cow to tip over a lantern or kick out an electrical box and start the next Great Chicago Fire this coming November.

But hey, you know - as long as I don't drown when the ship goes down, I'm good.

(Small side note to St. Louis drivers. You all SUCK. No, really - you do. In 15 years of driving the city regularly, I have NEVER had the problems I had on Monday with I-70 - I was in a friggin' moving traffic jam that went on FOR 30 MILES outside the city! Why couldn't the displaced Hwy. 40 drivers go bother I-44 instead? And you can't get out of this by saying it was all bad Illinois drivers - I saw WAY too many Missouri plates in that clusterfuck.)