5.29.2006

No matter how hard you try ....

I succeeded in getting to the beach today but not without having to take work with me. I had a lot of homework to read and there was the matter of getting to the bottom of an incident that turned out to be most inconvenient for a lot of people. I will leave the details out but just say it made Memorial Day memorable in the wrong way.

Once I sat down in my beach chair, I closed my eyes and listened to the waves. The waves' rhythm helped clear my head of all the noise that rattles around in there. I dozed a little and then read my take home papers.

Central Florida has been mighty dry and brush fires have played havoc with road travel. Today I was returning from the beach and just as I was approaching my I-95 exit to head west to Orlando, I could see huge plumes of smoke blowing across my intended route home. Needless to say, the highway patrol closed the westbound road. Then they closed I-95 southbound too; which left me with two options: return north and find another way west or head east towards the intracoastal and find a way south to another westbound highway, the BeachLine, site of a 26-car pile up last week. I opted for the BeachLine figuring it must be all burned up by now.

I worked my way through the local roads to find the BeachLine and navigated home pretty fast but, I have to say, I got through all that mess in the nick of time. Closures, backups and detours on an interstate are never pretty and I would probably be still sitting there; or maybe sitting on the beach waiting out the fires. 500 acres of fire.

4 comments:

April Anne said...

I'm sorry you had to do work on your day off, but at least you could do it at the beach! :) I spent part of the day correcting papers outside too, but I oddly enough, I enjoy correcting papers. Have a great week David!

L*I*S*A said...

Hope you were able to clear your head enough to enjoy the holiday weekend.

Bummer about the fires, too. :(

Unknown said...

eep...don't remind me. fire season is right around the corner here. hope this is the last time you get detoured!

and beach with homework is still better than no beach, right?

Rae said...

Yeah for the beach!!! Fires stink, I hate that time of year. I'll send you all our massive afternoon thunderstorms!