If Life is a Highway

I do NOT want to ride it all night long. In previous post I have conversed about how much I drive for The Network. Since I am leaving I believe they are trying to remind me daily how much I hate the driving here.

The hell drive started Friday with a short little jaunt to Belpre at 9:30am. I'm not looking forward to this because even though I have a reporter with me we are in separate cars and I'll explain why later. I get on the road and continue to drive. We hit Athens and we still have 45 minutes to go. We finally arrive to the high school, shoot a little video do a stand up by the river and that takes less than a half an hour. So 2 hours driving and 30 minutes of shooting.

Next stop on the happy fun day is Bridgeport. You know your drive will be long when if involves you GOING INTO WEST VIRGINIA. Yeah, it was faster to drive through another state. We take I-77 back into Ohio and continue to drive till we get to I-70 then drive 45 more minutes for a grand total of drive time being over 4 hours. We get to the location and the reporter says "Boy that was farther than I thought." You think? I hate to be so harsh, but what did he think it was going to be a quick drive? Either we drive out of the way via two interstates or take back roads along the river. We shoot within an hour and then we head to an the Applebee's in St. Clairsville for some lunch and an attempt to edit the story.

Here is why we needed two cars. My weekly football game was in Martins Ferry only 15 miles from St. Clairsville. The original plan was for me to drive back to Columbus (2hours) then drive back for the game. It's 3:30 when we finish so I would have missed most of the first quarter and had to have left at halftime to get the highlights on the air. Hmmm I don't think that's going to work. So we drove separate so I would not have to drive over 700 miles in a day.

I wander the St. Clairsville Mall and Feed Center before heading to the game. It was a blow out so I left at the half and drove back to Columbus. It was after 11:00pm when I got back. I drove over three hundred and fifty miles on Friday and I am dead tired and stagger home for some much needed sleep.

Well, I did not get a lot of sleep. Saturday was the only day that The Wife and I can go see my parents so we drive down to Ironton for the day. The Wife drives most of the way down and let me sleep. At this point I am wanting to become Amish so I never have to be in a car again.

Now it is today Monday and in the morning meeting it is decided that I'm with the new reporter who just came from a station in Marietta, Oh. She is given the assignment about meth labs and she wants to go to Marietta because she has contacts there. I shoot a look of death and she can't figure out why. She have never done a drive like this and have to turn the story in the same day. On the return trip figured out that maybe going to a town over two hours away just because she has contacts is a little counter productive.

Since Friday I have travelled over 900 miles and almost all of it within the state of Ohio. I seriously want to move to North Carolina for some new scenery.

The disclaimer here is I know I will have to do a lot of driving at the new job, but hell not that much. I need a couple of in town days to get the stink of fast food, road kill and car air freshener off me.