Off to Maine again!

This weekend I drove from Boston to Central Maine for my Niece’s 3rd birthday. Total miles were about 450 and I drove by my self. Usually driving that far by yourself sucks.

My knee has been bothering me, so I took this long drive as an opportunity to ice it. I loaded two cooler packs into the Igloo cooler and placed it on the passenger seat. I also loaded a growler of home-brew in the cooler for the party, for the adults!

I also brought along about a dozen CD’s as radio in Maine sucks. No two ways about it. You can hear new or old country music, or old rock music. God help me! No one in Maine is interested in new music? Only college stations play anything worth listening to up there?

So I listened to my own oldies that I don’t often get a chance to and iced my knee and leg most of the way up. I think I made pretty good use of my alone time.

At my nieces house I put my freezer packs in her freezer and sat on the floor and played with my grand-niece? Great Niece? Not sure how that works.

She was a total bundle of energy! She didn’t stop moving the entire time we played. I forget how much energy a 3-year old has. I know she sleeps 10 hours a night and takes a nap, but even that much sleep would not give me half of her energy!

To my niece, a party is not a party unless there is cake. No cake, no party. She had to show me the cake that Mom made. I got to hang with her for about an hour before everyone else showed up. And we had lunch together. Does it get any better than that! That was worth 8 hours in the car and 450 miles. Absolutely!

Slowly family and friends began to show up. I got to watch all the moms with young kids and remember what it was like. All the bags and car seats and temper tantrums. The good old days! I miss it, but I don’t.

It was interesting so see “kids” that I saw at my niece’s wedding now managing their own kids. I watched my own niece grow up and now she is a mom. We can relate as parents and adults now. It just seems so normal.

As 3:30 and then 4PM rolled around it got to be time to leave. I hated to leave this magic moment, but I knew I had four hours of driving ahead of me with good traffic. We were all rolling out, including my sister and brother-in-law.

I got my hug and kiss from my grand-niece, and before I left I got another hug and kiss because mom or dad did not see her give me a hug and kiss before. How could I refuse. It would have been rude! Totally worth 450 miles!

Road to Boston

We had weird weather. While setting up for the party in the yard it rained while we squinted in the bright sun light. Then it was sunny all afternoon. After being on 95 South for about 15 minutes I noticed the road ahead was smoking and two motorcycles had pulled over. I then smelled gasoline. I thought there had been an accident.

As I went under the bridge where the cyclist were pulled over I saw that there was a down pour on the other side of the bridge. The road was so hot that the rain turned into steam instantly. The drops were huge and the rain only lasted for the next 10 miles or so.

A little more excitement

As I approached the exit for home I noticed a bunch of dirt flying through the air and some smoke. I was back probably 200 yards from the action, but I saw a car bounce into the guard rail, spin around a few times and then slam into the guard rail before coming to a stop. We were all doing at least 70 mph.

I was so busy breaking and making sure no one was going to hit me, that I wasn’t even scared. As I went past the crashed car the driver’s side door popped open and I could see that the air bag had deployed and it looked like the driver was buckled in. Good thing.

About 10 cars pulled over to help. I don’t have any medical training and it looked like the guy was going to get all the help he needed, so I kept going. When I was home, I could hear all of the sirens heading out to the highway. I began to think about what could have happened if some one behind me had hit me at 70 mph. Or if the car that crashed had flown out into the highway. The four lane road was very busy and we were all going very fast.

It could have been bad.

Running

Yes, I ran this weekend! I managed 12.5 miles on Sunday at a pretty good clip and I even ran in the last two+ miles with negative splits! I think the icing worked! I’ll keep at it, but I think I have successfully managed my niggle. It was NOT an injury.

I managed to get in almost 21 miles last week and with my 12.5 miles on Sunday, I should be able to get close to 30 again this week. I feel so much better!

Run well my friends!

© Andrew Nagelin 2014