Sunday, April 03, 2005
It's a Deluge!
April showers bring May flowers... I bloody well hope so!!!
Thankfully we went flying on Friday night, because it rained all day Saturday and today. Maybe I asked for too much when I said I wanted rain to melt all the snow, because we had enough rain bestowed upon us yesterday to float Noah's ark.
It started when we left for Philadelphia early yesterday afternoon. By the time we were 10 miles into our trip, the windscreen wipers could barely keep up with the sheets of rain. We were hydroplaning all over the place; switching lanes was hazardous. There were waterfalls beside the highway that threatened to flood the embankments.
We were only in Philadelphia the other Saturday, but I'd been reminiscing about the great Philly cheese steaks we had two visits ago, and we wanted to see Woody Allen's latest film, "Melinda and Melinda". Needless to say, Woody Allen works aren't mainstream enough for these parts, and therefore completely unavailable. I searched for the closest movie theatres showing it, and they were either in the Philly area, New Jersey, or New York. We chose to head south instead of east, since we were in Manhattan the previous weekend.
David's review on Multiply: Melinda and Melinda
When we reached downtown Philadelphia the rain began to diminish, and stopped completely by the early evening. The air was fresh and warm when we walked from the cheese steak place to the cinema, so after the film I suggested we try and shoot some pictures of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge from the New Jersey side. It must've been a sign from above, because the heavens opened up again after we traversed the bridge...
Was Somebody trying to tell us NOT to go to New Jersey??? The photo above was taken crossing the bridge, as it started pelting. It took us a while to find the Camden waterfront, which was deserted save for a Leon's taxi driver and a police car. A sign pointed to a historical site -- Walt Whitman's house, only a short distance away from a giant sign for a bail bonds office housed in an old building. An interesting juxtaposition, but the rain made it impossible to capture it on camera. Next time!
Since it was pouring again, the only thing left to do was head back across the bridge to Pennsylvania. Instead of the 'name places running through the alphabet' car game, we spent the treacherous trip back to Scranton writing limericks about our Orkut friends. I'd post some of them here, but lacking context they wouldn't make sense.
About 10 miles from home, we hit some massive potholes the size of craters. It was dark, and we had no warning -- David went to the passing lane to try and avoid them, and we hit another one so hard I thought we'd killed whatever suspension was left after the first pothole. The car stayed in one piece, but it was rumbling. We passed by some other folk along the roadside who probably hit the same potholes, but sustained more damage. David was sure the tire was flat, but there was no place to pull over safely, so we just kept going. There was some cursing from the driver's side, as David had just replaced the front tires the previous day!
Amazingly, the tire wasn't punctured, but the rims were twisted, as you can see by the photo. What we didn't notice last night was how badly the rim was bent -- not just the part I photographed, but much of the way around. David's going to take the car in tomorrow to the dealership. His final car payment is this month, so I'm sorely tempted to quote Murphy's Law...
(Was it worth it all for some Woody Allen and Philly cheese steak? Oh yes!)
