Well, I arrived in Pennsylvania and proceeded to go into a vegetative state.  I shall blame it on the cold.

My last night on the road, I stayed in a hotel in Ohio – my room was the “Business Place Room”  as described by the sign on my door.  It was huge and had hardly any furniture – I could have held a soccer match in the room.  It was 25 feet long and 15 feet wide… a bed, a table, a mini fridge and 1 metal chair… oh and an ironing board.  What were they thinking?

The room was noisy, the television was terrible and after seeing several billboards about bedbugs on the road… I couldn’t stop itching.  It was all in my head, but ugh I felt creepy crawly all night long.  Finally at 5AM I got up, packed up and hit the road.

Just as well, snow flurries along the way made for sort of dicey drive over the first set of mountains.  Had one moment of surreal in a Sheetz gas and go along route 22 in the middle of nowhere.  When I arrived, no one was there except for me and the attendant in the shop.  One restroom break and purchase of coffee later and all hell broke loose – it began when, as I was washing my hands, a man walked into the restroom.  He looked confused upon seeing me in there, and we both sort of stood there like deer in the headlight.  He finally said, “Oh, whoops.”  And I being quite verbose said, “Yep.”  Stepping out to get my coffee and the place is buzzing with a bunch of winter travelers panicking about the snow flurries and buying maps, microwaveable breakfast sandwiches and creating a run on coffee.

As I paid, a woman burst into the store and pushed in front of me saying quite franticaly, “The pump isn’t working… my husband has tried and the pump isn’t working.”  The attendant asked her what number pump they were using and told her that they had used up all but a dollar.  The woman harumphed, “That’s impossible!”   She looked out the window and realized she had given the wrong pump number and started all over again.  In the meantime, I left the coffee money and slinked out of chaos.  All the gas pumps were busy and people seemed to be racing about because of the flurries.  It was all very strange.  Especially since the flurries amounted to less than an inch of snow.

As you can tell, if the stop at Sheetz was the most exciting thing that happened…it was a pretty slow day.  Woke up this morning with sinus headache – a gift of the cold outside and the dry inside, no doubt.

So, my blog is short and quiet today, as I will go and nurse my head some more.

As ever,

K. Quinn