Random Roadtrip Observations

The drive from Columbia up to Dee Cee on Friday was, shall we say, a lively one, primarily due to the weather. I left Columbia Friday morning in the middle of a blazing thunderstorm, with lashing rain, microburst gusts and all the attendant highway perils that go with them, all under a sky the appearance of which passed through every definition of the word "ominous" I could think of, up to and including that greenish tinge that makes one automatically start scanning around for the funnel cloud. Heading east, I outran the line of storms just as I pulled into Florence and hit I-95 north. I was able to stop at a gas station and coffee up just before they caught me again, dogging me until I hit Fayetteville. The rest of the drive wasn't too bad until I crossed a frontal boundary around Richmond and smacked into a new wodge of much colder rain. (I should mention that I did not take the back or side panels of the Jeep with me, just the door panels. So I got the full sound, smell and feel of the weather as I tooled along. I actually rather prefer this to being cooped up in a hermetically sealed box, although it does have its disadvantages as well. However, with the door panels on, it's surprising how little moisture makes its way into the front, even in the heaviest rain.)

Anyhoo, I just wanted to mention two things that caught my eye on the trip. First, in the Department of Redundancy Department, there is a river in South Carolina called the Wateree River. Just to distinguish it from the Dustee River, I suppose.

Second, I saw some species of Cadillac roadster convertible that must be pretty high up in the list of potential Ugliest Car on the Road candidates. I don't know what it was called, but it looked like the bastard love child of a PT Cruiser and the old German kubelwagen (aka, the Volkswagen "Thing"). I shudder to think that someone spent at least 40K on something like that.

UPDATE: After a little digging, I see that what I spotted was, in fact, a PT Cruiser convertible. (I didn't know they made one.) But I stand by my statement about its ugliness.