Fridays

My Fridays are mostly uneventful, usually. The morning and early afternoon is generally relaxing. I usually practice at some point (which I did this afternoon), and knit or spin or card some wool. This morning was spent carding wool, as I had used up all the previously carded wool for that project. It's a bit zen, but we'll talk about that more later. Around 2:45 I pack up my things and head north. I teach a student up in Athol at his house on Fridays at 3:30. With traffic it takes about 40 minutes to get to his house. After that lesson (and the reason I'm willing to drive out there to do it), I head a bit further north to pick up the milk from the farm. (For more about getting milk from a farm and why I do it, see this post.) By the time I'm done with all this, I usually get home around 5:30. Now that we're in the Dark Time, this means I leave when it's daylight, but the rest of my driving on windy state highways in the middle of nowhere is done after dark.

Usually this routine is not to big of a problem. I'm still getting used to driving around up there at night (which is very different from driving around town at night), but last week wasn't a big deal. This week the whole ordeal was a bit of a comedy of errors. It started out with me running a few minutes late, but not so much that it should've been a big deal. Then, I hit nearly every light red on the highway. With the new timing of the lights, traffic gets waaaay backed up, and it's terrible. So, I finally get north of the lights and we're going along fine, then I see a sign on the side of the road saying Highway 54 is closed at the railroad crossing and to take Brunner Road for a detour. Let me just say that I am not overly familiar with the back roads north of town. I can get around town just fine, but once I get very much north, all I know is the main highways and whatever Google maps can tell me on my iPhone. Up there it's all Edge network, so it takes forever for anything to load. Highway 54 is what I take to get to my lesson, so I took the detour. Unfortunately, I decided to take the wrong road north. I made it to Highway 54 just fine, but still on the wrong side of the closed road. So, I had to go all the way back down to where I'd gotten off the highway and try again. The second time I did fine and made it to my lesson. Only 25 minutes late. The lesson is only 30 minutes. I was a bit frustrated. Fortunately, I had called ahead and let them know what was going on. They were flexible enough to just have me do the lesson when I got there. So, after the lesson I had to take the detour all the way back south, then go north again to go get the milk. On the way back I once again got stuck behind the slow person who likes to go 15 to 20 miles below the speed limit. And the passing lanes are always start on a curve going uphill, which makes passing difficult. Add to that darkness, difficulty seeing the lines, and lights from oncoming traffic flashing past and it makes trying to pass the slow poke extra fun. Especially when the person behind me is tailgating me hardcore and I can't go any faster because there's someone in front of me not going super fast, but fast enough to pass the really slow guy. Grrr. In short, I did not have a very nice drive tonight. But, I only got home about a half hour later than normal. So, I suppose it could have been worse. It'll be fun to see what things are like once the snow starts sticking...