By now I was getting a bit paranoid though. The actual task of driving the
car 800 miles home had not
been approached realistically on my part (mentally) and those giant downward
slopes on the mountains were scaring me! What if the steering wheel fell
off - or the brakes gave out! It also had a lot to do with lack of sleep
I'm sure..... Either way I kept going North up into Pennsylvania and it got
dark. I don't know about your Triumph but mine has really good lights.
Really good - I was very relieved having imagined glow worms for headlights.
Still driving through the mountains in Southern PA in the dark was forcing
my adrenalin to new heights. I was getting Jumpy.
Have you ever been stuck inside your own head for 12 hours? I have and it's
not a good thing for me. I had no radio. The portable one I brought could
not pick up a signal because they don't have radio stations in these parts
of the world apparently. Too many trees to listen to. My nervousness grew.
Pretty soon I decided I had better stop in Cleveland for the night as my
original plan of doing it all in one shot was obviously totally absurd. 81
miles out of Cleveland the thunderstorm hit. Thunder, Lightning, Semi
Trailers, and 6 inch wiper blades that barely touch the windshield. At
least they kept moving. Oh - and the water. Just in case you don't know
it - TR3's leak like mad. I was soaked through and so was everything in the
cab.
Lucky for me I had brought a flashlight so I piled everything on the
passenger seat and covered me and my stuff with my coat. I made it to
Cleveland and almost damaged the gearbox by trying to back up with the
overdrive on. Duh. I turned off the electric fuel pump as I could not get
the keys to lock the car and what's the point anyway - right?
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