Cruise control napping...

A tour of 35 from Duluth to Bloomington in the new ride. Lucky I stayed awake the whole time - almost pulled us into either 1) neighboring traffic or 2) the ditch many, many times since i almost fell asleep about a dozen times. In past days - such as college days driving across exciting northern WI in the pitch black of night - I would have either been singing my lungs out (doubtful you'd want to hear that - although I might be good, no one really knows) or hanging my head out the window trying to freeze myself back awake to avoid the cruise control napping. In an airplane - probably not so big a deal with the whole autopilot - but in a chevrolet, yea, a big deal.....just ask my cousin, he hit a school once during a nap. Anyways - couldn't open the window or sing since dad was doing a nice job keeping me awake by taking his own nap in the passenger seat (never mind the fact that it was only 3:30 in the afternoon and I was tired as hell for no good reason).

So, I made it through, got to the W/E split and was golden from there since at that point it's fun to drive the minnesota autobahn and keep up with the cities crazies. We hit downtown and the traffic stopped. Nothing like using 35 dubbs for a parking lot. After about a half hour of stooper and crawl, I was quite happy I'd chosen a couple years ago to take work in Duluth rather than Pittsburgh, Chicago or MSP. Does anyone understand the concept of why people feel the need to change lanes back and forth in this type of traffic? Like that one row is really moving any faster - it's not. I watched a guy in a souped up 'burban go back and forth and honk and merge and I swear he lost spots compared to if he'd stayed put....i just don't get it.

Finally we hit some relatively open road south of 494 and cruise into the holiday inn just off the freeway. After check in - shoot back up the road to Bennigans to meet up with a salesman for dinner. Excellent food and drinks. We all order a drink and out come the 2 for 1s....unexpectedly. Gotta love that. A nice glass of red with a steak and salmon combo with potatoe later and we're on our way back.

Not looking forward so much to the overnight snoring (not mine of course - that'd be my dad) - but that's why I now travel with earplugs (yea that's right - that's the college education paying off).

Big day tomorrow - get to learn how to be a better foam lego block salesman i guess. Better rest up (ok, maybe not -- but some good sleep would be great for me right now).