The Drive home Saturday & Sunday

Saturday

Saturday morning when I left Murfreesboro I had frost on all my car windows. It was hovering around 20 degrees there overnight. It was sunny when I left and stayed that way most of the day. As it turned out, I hadn’t planned the day very well.

I should have gassed up in Tennessee where the prices were around $2.05/gallon. Instead I assumed the prices in Louisville would be much lower- they were not. I’m not sure if the gas prices were just going up country-wide at that time or what, but I paid $2.33/gallon in Louisville- the most I’d paid on the entire trip. When I came home through Louisville about a month ago, I paid $1.91/gallon.

I also had forgotten about the time change as soon as you leave Nashville. Nashville is on CST and Kentucky and Indiana are on EST. That morning, when I stopped at a McDonalds in Kentucky for breakfast around 10AM (by my clock), it was actually around 11AM and way too late for breakfast (too bad for me). I didn’t run into any snow on the ground until just north of Louisville. Luckily it didn’t snow anyplace along the way to Chicago where I stayed the night with Donna and Paige Van Vorst. I arrived at their place around 3:30. An hour later, it started to snow and Chicago received another 2-inches to add to the 8-10-inches already on the ground there.

After dinner at the nearby Polish buffet restaurant, Paige put on a slide show with a bunch of old slides he had forgotten he had taken of Minneapolis and St. Paul rigs and fires in the 60s. Many of them I had never seen before. He’s got some great photos of the 1948 & 1949 MFD Macks when they were still open cabs. He’s also got some great photos of old fires, including shots of the two extras in St. Paul on February 28, 1968.

We spent the rest of the evening talking about the old times. Paige has an amazing memory for dates and events and discussed the trip we took by bus to downtown Minneapolis in 1958 to see the final movie, “Damn Yankees,” that played at the old Radio City Theater before it closed for good. It was the first time we walked to all the downtown MFD stations by foot. Station 10 got a run while we were there and we couldn’t help but notice this impressive looking firefighter that drove the big Mack 2000 GPM pumper. We would later become very good friends with that firefighter- Dave Hackett.

We watched the local news coverage of them moving the Southwest Airlines 727 from the middle of Central Avenue, where it ended up a couple nights before after skidding off the end of runway 31C. The reason the O’Hare Crash Trucks were sent to Midway Airport that night was not to assist at the crash scene. FAA rules require that there be crash trucks on the field in order for the airport to remain open. The O’Hare crash trucks were sent so that Midway Airport had the fire protection to remain open. I don’t think it made any difference that night as the airport never reopened because of the snowy conditions. I crashed shortly after the news.



Sunday

I wasn’t in any hurry to hit the road today as it was only about a six-hour drive from Chicago to Minneapolis. I watched the Weather Channel, which reported snow in Rockford, IL. I left the Van Vorst home around 9AM under overcast conditions and cold weather (around 20 degrees).

I got on the Illinois Tollway and made pretty good time getting out of the city. The clouds started breaking up around O’Hare Airport and there were blue skies from the Elgin Tollbooth the rest of the way home. I stopped at the Belvedere Oasis for gas ($2.16/gallon) and a breakfast at Micky D's. It was an easy drive from there on with good road conditions and mostly light traffic. My worries about running into bad weather had been unfounded.

I arrived home in Minneapolis, safe and happy, around 3:30. I was amazed that I’d made it all the way home without having to drive through any snow. That seemed like an impossibility after looking at the weather mid-week. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to get home by Christmas the way the weather had looked then. They sure got hit hard on the east coast again. And Chicago's been running 20 degrees below normal so far this month. Crazy weather!

I have to thank the many firefighters I visited with on this trip. They were all so very friendly and helpfull. They made each and every one of my visits to the many stations I visited so very enjoyable. Members of the five service always seem to make you feel at home- no matter where you are.

Your Roving Reporter