Fog Area

You know those signs on the highway you come across sometimes, especially on like, hilly or mountainy stretches of road, that say "Fog Area"?

I'd never given them much attention before. Maybe once or twice I've noticed that there was a little hovering mist or something and thought "Ah, how lovely, a picturesque fog, just like the sign says!"

Until I was driving back to NC last night down 77. I'd just gotten off of 81 when I started seeing these signs. These permanent signs were coupled with those overhead light-up signs that sometimes tell you about detours or accidents or heavy traffic. Last night they said "Fog Ahead Use Caution."

No shit. It was like I was in some horror movie environment that could only be made by Hollywood special effects. Here is an artistic rendering of what my visibility was like.
My friend with the darkish-color car and the double-circle tail lights was the only thing keeping me on the road at times. I have never been more thankful for the little yellow reflector thingies they put on the guard rails. And like, okay, a dense fog for a couple minutes is one thing. A dense fog for about 20 minutes is another thing. It might have been longer because for the first several minutes I wasn't looking at my clock because I was trying to squint through the clouds of death to find the lines on the road, and because I was at this point saying outloud to myself things like "Seriously? Is this real? Whatt? Are you serious?!" Here's a map showing the terror-death-zone. Note the dangerous red color and the frantic lines signaling extreme peril.

In short, I am a relatively nervous driver as is. Lord only knows how I made it 800 miles in a U-Haul this summer. By the time I got out of the fog last night and onto a piece of highway that actually resembled a ROAD at nightime (i.e. you can see black asphalt and lights and other cars) instead of the inside of a tub of Kool-Whip, my eyes were sore from squinting and my arms were tense from gripping the steering wheel at the most desperate ten-and-two position you've ever seen. Whew.

Back to work tomorrow. Kind of dreading it, to be honest. I'm just not up for loud, unruly teenagers. Christmas break could go on for another month. It'd be lovely. I'd do Appalachian Trail research, do my elimination diet, run on a regular basis, read all the novels I've started but haven't finished, get through Romans, do a painting or two, visit friends, have dinner parties, drink tea, watch Netflix .... sigh. Five months until summer.