The Race Home

I set out to my grandmother's place for some amateur farming yesterday. It was a beautiful day, and strictly on account of the fact that my Lancer's battery is dead, and that Shelby CSX VNT #497 has two windows which roll down, it was brought out of the bullpen for the ride. The temp was in the 80s and slated to be only 50 the next, so we thought, might as well soak up as much nice weather as possible while it lasts. After suffering only one breakage on the International 615 combine (long story) we had all the beans in and started working on the planter. It was quite surreal to take in beans right before planting, but what was a running joke for several hours was a thunderstorm warning. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and life was grand. We turned wrenches, talked about ham radio, and the current Chinese Flu that's going around. Good times.

After several hours of farming fun, we retired to the porch and continued with conversation. My father's cellular telephone interrupted once more with a weather alert and he had just enough service on the porch to get the radar. While many people fancy themselves as budding meteorologists, my father takes the weather more seriously than most, so the look on his face followed by his stating that it was time for me to leave and drive as quickly as possible told me I needed to do just that. I jumped into 497 and headed down the road at a brisk pace.

With a severe storm brewing and the Chinese Flu on the prowl I decided anything less than double the posted limit should be good for the highways. Not wanting to draw the attention of the local constabulary, I kept my speeds at 70-80 through rural IL with my only idea of bad weather being the warnings issued. The car was very happy to cruise at speed and the 7 mile curve felt good as I for once was conscious of the camber to the road, allowing for higher speed. It made me think of my grandfather once telling me that he took the turn at well over 100mph in a Jaguar E type. I pushed the pedal down further. By the time I went by the junior college, shuttered by the CF, I was doing 85 or so. A quick dip in speed to catch the entrance ramp with the VNT turbo at full tilt and I was on the interstate.

As I entered the interstate, I knew that I had to keep moving and push hard while watching the temp gauge. In my opinion, 31 year old TII radiators are less than marginal when not in good condition. I hadn't proof tested this one yet, so this would tell the tale. Only a couple miles down the road, I knew why I needed to go even faster. The sky was turning black and the temp was falling noticeably. If there was a situation in which you had to know bad weather was coming this was it. I pushed the pedal further toward the floor. Amazed that semis weren't getting off the road, I passed them one after the next. Most people were getting out of my way and only one car decided to camp in the left lane the whole way back. The speedometer touched 100 and stayed there for most of my trip. I said at the beginning of this whole Chinese Flu mess that it would be the perfect time for a cannonball. The temp gauge never moved above half mast as I ran down the road and I made record time home. As I stepped out of the car to grab my water and sunscreen, the first drops started to fall. The police frequency kept my baofeng radio glowing into the night with reports of downed power lines, a bad accident on the interstate, and people doing generally stupid things while debris was blowing about. Fortunately, the worst of it missed our town and we suffered very little damage compared to some places in the region.

At the end of the day, I missed a crazy storm and didn't have a semi roll over on me, so I've got that going for me, which is nice. I also decided to post up in this section of the board since it has been well over 1 year since someone made the last post. :eyebrows:

Very nice, Cordes. Hope everybody is healthy and safe.

Thanks Mike. It sounds like we were lucky here. My father had a house on fire near him due to downed power lines, and there was a lot of wind damage everywhere. If we can just keep from getting the CF, we'll be all set.

Thanks for posting this! It was a fun read.

Glad you enjoyed it. That was one of the crazier storms I've ever watched roll across the prairie.