Ice Storms, South Carolina & Super Bowl

Okay, sorry I have been offline for so long. I have been in kind of a funk lately. But I will repent of that.

Anyway, to give you an update, I was offered a job in Columbia, South Carlolina, remodeling a hotel.

It is always hard for me to leave my family, but the way the economy is going, I said goodbye to my wives and children and left last week for "Back East" with some relatives.

The problem is - we decided to travel right at the time when one of the worst ice storms in the past 100 years hit the Midwest.

We hit Amarillo at the tail of the storm, and the roads were ice for the rest of the way. The photo above is Checotah, Oklahoma (home of Carrie Underwood.) Oklahoma was totally unprepared for the storm. I live in a part of Arizona that gets snow occasionally. When we get a skiff of snow, we have a fleet of snow plows patroling the highways. I saw three snowplows in Oklahoma - three! There was three inches of ice on the roads, and we counted 16 cars that slid off the highway.

By the time we got to Kentucky, the roads were pretty clear, but the trees were so laden with ice that most of them were bending at the trunk, literally. It looked like icicle hell. The storm took down 8,000 power lines across the state, leaving most of the state in darkness. It was eerie driving down the Bluegrass Parkway, seeing entire towns without lights. The only light was the glow of Cincinatti in the distance.

I stayed with some friends in the Appalachians of eastern Kentucky. Then on Sunday morning, my brother came to pick me up, and we went to South Carolina. It was a beautiful road. We took some back roads through the mountains (talk about switchbacks!)

We arrived in Columbia just in time to watch the Super Bowl. I like Pittsburgh, since I worked there for several months in 2007. But I live in Arizona, so I had to root for the Cardinals! What a close game!

The ironic thing - I competed with the Super Bowl. "Forbidden Love: Polygamy" aired at 7PM on TLC - at the same time as the Super Bowl! So I doubt that very many people saw it. I didn't find out until this evening.

Dawn Porter also posted on her site that the episode is available on iTunes, for any interested. Just type in "Dawn Porter", and the show should come up.

So, if anyone wants to talk to me, I will be in South Carolina for the next month, or so. So far, I have discovered Bojangles. They love their fried chicken here in the South.

(I will be finishing my "Our Living Conditions" bit this week. )



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