Woke up to a quarter-full lot of Sunday worshippers at the Worship Center on the hill. Hit the road immediately, with the intent of cruising a few exits north and getting a cup of coffee.
Played one-more-exit roulette until hitting a wall of stopped traffic on a two-lane stretch of I-75 outside Jellico. Finished the audiobook of Little Bosses Everywhere and a Hoop Collective podcast episode before I made it a mile and a half down the road. Total blockage. Thick forest on either side of the highway, and the cicadas in Tennessee and Kentucky are above ground and running buckwild right now.
Plague-levels of these beefy, screeching dumb-dumbs just flinging themselves at cars and captive passengers.1 Saw more than one buzz its way through a rolled-down window, which inevitably led to all the windows rolling down quickly, leading to a better view of all the passengers flailing around in cicada-panic inside the cabin.
Few places better to weather an all-afternoon traffic incident than a well-provisioned bus. People sprinting back from the treeline, waving off cicada assault gangs after sneaking off the shoulder to pee. No need to run that gauntlet when you got your own bathroom in tow. Feeling peckish? Pop that parking brake on and go rummage around in the pantry. Eat from a 8 month old2 jug of Kirkland brand peanut butter pretzels and stretch your legs on the couch for a spell. It’s fine!
It did make me late for the introductory pizza party for new Camp Counselors though. Crossed the Ohio River a little past five, found the familiar streets of Norwood very bus-friendly and pleasant to pilot. Pulled up in time to put some toppings on the last pie before it went into the oven.
Hit the ground running this week with counselor training. In-depth, actually-valuable lessons on a range of topics from teaching kids how to swim, to working with trauma-afflicted kids. We’ll see how it goes when Matt Teacher steps in the pool next week.
I’m officially in the Cincinnati metro though. Where else can you punish yourself by eating something like this:
Time to go move the bus. I’ll get an email notification sign-up widget on this site…sometime this weekend.
bus.hair 