fbhjr | Off to Kentucky

Our trip to Kentucky started across the street from where I work when I brought my Prius in for service before we left.

I could tell my type C is still fairly rare as the service guy had to ask me questions like “is this the one with the normal shifter? Does it get the milage they say?”
Their offices are done in the furniture made by my last company and the type for which I was the engineering project leader. Seeing it dented and held on with tape made me wonder about leaving my car with them.
But, I did and as I walked back over to work it drove around back for service.

Once I got out of work, we set off west.

Going through the hills of western Massachusetts is very nice.

We passed through one of my “ancestral homelands” of Troy NY, but didn’t stop.

Heading west across New York state gave us a very nice view of a sunset.

But, when buying gas in NY, we found my Prius hates the state and gave horrible milage.

My theory is the huge number of bugs we drove through splatting on the windshield increased the drag.

Seriously, the front of the car is now bug guts colored.

Our plan had been to stop in Buffalo for the night. It’s about 6 hours from home and we got there just about midnight.
We got off on the exit next to the airport and there are about 15 hotels there.
Every single one was full.
Apparently even though they all have light up display signs in front, none of them can display “no vacancies” as some we had to go in to find out, some had paper notes taped to their door.
I asked one manager at a place without the sign what was going on to fill every hotel.
“I don’t know,” he told me. “But, we’re full and all the other places nearby tell me they are full as well. Try the exit on the other side of the airport.”
We did.
All full.
We tried the last exit in Buffalo.
I went up to the hotel there.
“We’ve got one room,” the woman told me while waving her cigarette at me. “It’s got two double beds, it’s a smoking room and it’s $120 for the night. You want it?”
My wife and I don’t smoke and are allergic to it.
We kept driving.

100 of so miles later I was getting really tired and we were into Pensilvania, which we hoped was not full.
We pulled into the hotel located between two fireworks stores and asked for a non-smoking room.

They had 1 left and we took it. I was a bit worried about them having smoking rooms in between two fireworks stores, but it was 2AM and I didn’t care that much.

We got into the hotel room and got into bed.
Suddenly there was a lot of loud beeping.
“It’s the microwave,” my wife said.
I went and looked at it. When we had come in, the display had given the time. Now it was all 2’s. I hit clear and it went back to the time. I got back in bed.
A couple minutes later, loud beeping and the display was all 2’s again.
“I guess it is haunted,” I told my wife.
“Unplug it,” my wife said. “If it does it again after that, it is haunted and we can safely through it out the window onto interstate 90.”
I unplugged it and waited.
No beeping.

In the morning we set off again about 6:30. I reflected that it was good we had found a hotel that was open 24 hours.

I would have hated them to come to the room at 3AM and kick us out as they were closed for the night.

I also found it strange that next to the highway was the “Niagara welcome center”.

It’s about 150 miles from Niagara and in a different state.

We pressed on through Ohio. I didn’t know Ohio had a city with a subway system, but we passed several subway cars.

There are sections of Ohio that are fairly empty.

We have towns like this in Mass.

But, we spell Wooster as Worcester.

Then, we went through Columbus Ohio. I think they call it Columbus because you are driving through a lot of flat farmland and suddenly there is a city. Just the way the Caribbean snuck up on Columbus.

Of course they have a road named for me, so I like them.

Then, it’s back to sailing towards the edge of the world.

I71 in Ohio has a lot of police on it.

Then, Cincinnati.

The freezers my company uses are made here. I told my boss I’d stop at the factory and slap them around some if he wanted. But, if he wanted me to do anything more than that, he’d have to pay for my trip.
We didn’t stop and drove through to Kentucky.