The Garden State

I was born in New Jersey. Although I consider the mid-Hudson Valley my home, a place I have lived for the better part of 30 years, I'll always be a Jersey Guy. It's where I'm from. It's where I am.

Wait! WHY AM I IN NEW JERSEY!!!!!!

Oh man. That's a long, long story. I'm supposed to be in Des Moines right now. Or really close to Des Moines. I am not. I am still in Jersey. Home. But I don't feel at home here in the Grand Summit Hotel, in the Land of Rolek.

The day started off easily enough, with Jackie and I leaving Marist in my old Subaru, bound for Newark Airport and our trip to USA Juniors. Jackie tolerated the mess that is my car. I was worried that the thing was going to overheat -- it has been running hot lately, especially while idling. Keep that little nugget in mind for later ...

She texted Quimes -- he LOVES getting texts from members of the women's team! -- to remind him and Nicoletti to bring their driver's licenses. Quimes texted back that his buddy Drew from Adelphi had his flight to Des Moines canceled. Poor guy, I though. Yeah. Poor guy.

We arrived at the United terminal to find that ... OUR flight to Chicago had been canceled. Lovely. The fine folks at United booked us on an American Airlines flight ... which was subsequently canceled. Apparently, Chicago was having some seriously gnarly weather.

After burning up the cell phone lines with our travel agent and standing on endless ticketing lines, we kept hitting dead-ends. No luck finding flights to Chicago. To Des Moines. To Omaha. Heck, just get me in the central time zone already!

Finally, we were booked on a flight that leaves Newark at 6 am Thursday, goes to Minneapolis and finally to Omaha ... which is still 2 hours away from Des Moines. And Quimes is supposed to be running the steeple at 1:45 p.m. It's a less-than-average bet we'll be making it to the starting line. But we'll try. We may drive from Minneapolis. We may drive from Omaha. Who knows? We may not even get off the ground!

But for today, for now it was time to find a hotel room in New Jersey. The Marriott at the Airport was asking a cool $300 per room. Ix-Nay to that. So we drove into the wilds of northern New Jersey. Of course, we hit construction traffic on I-78 near Maplewood (ROLEK COUNTRY!). Of course, it was 93-friggin-degrees. Of course, my car started overheating!

But, having driven old beaters for much of my life, allow me to teach you a trick to prevent overheating in the fast lane in suburban New Jersey -- thus becoming the start of the traffic report on WDHA (disabled vehicle in the left lane of Route 78, backups to Hillside ...). Here's what you do. You roll down the windows, and you CRANK THE HEAT. That's right. THE HEAT. Turning on the heat somehow cools down your engine enough so that it does not fry like an egg right there on Route 78.

So, with scalding legs and sweaty palms, we made it to this hotel, where we will get a little sleep, and we'll try to get to Des Moines in time for Quimes to jump over the barriers. If we don't make it, at least he's got the 10k on Friday, and with any luck we SHOULD be there in time for Jackie's 1500 on Friday morning. And Nic is running the 10k Friday night too. If we get there.

After today, nothing is for certain. Stay tuned ...