nausea.
Today’s assignment had me and my reporter, Erin (and “Ricky the Intern”) taking a nice extended drive to North Carolina. We were sent out to cover a horrible fire that happened overnight at an old-timey bed-n-breakfast. Pretty easy assignment, but there was a catch: we had to drive back to the station, rather than go live. The SNG truck was already booked.
All three map programs gave different directions, but they all were in agreement that it was well over two hours away. That gave us just enough time to drive there, jump out of the car, shoot our story (really quickly), and then haul-ass drive back. We picked the route that looked easiest on the map, but ended up regretting it after about thirty minutes [see diagram below].
I maneuvered around non-stop curves for what seemed like forever. And as I went round each bend I prayed that we wouldn’t be smashed by an oncoming truck or that I’d succumb to my ever-increasing motion sickness.
And nearly the entire way we were behind this MF truck.
I have no idea how Erin managed to stare at the laptop all the way back, logging our video and banging out the scripts. But at least she had something to keep her occupied. I had one new curve after another, occasionally offset by the sideways glance at the dashboard clock (which had me calculating numerous speed vs. mileage vs. time equations).
Anyway, everything worked out. We made a desperate call to the newsroom, and they magaged to deciper through the messy cell coverage the following key words: “….xxxx….need….xxxx….live truck…..xxxx….meet us……halfway…..back….xxxx” They had a truck meet us, and I chopped up some video and we were good - although still quite car sick.
Posted on December 28, 2006
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Is ‘Ricky the Intern’ something similar to ‘Ensign Ricky’? (I think it was Family Guy, or maybe The Simpsons)… ie, the junior member of the Star Trek away team who always ends up getting phasered first?
I hate winding switchback roads like that, for exactly that reason. Kudos, cheers, thanks, and lots of sympathy to your assignment desk for getting you a truck to meet halfway.
btw: Kerry is thinking of the Redshirts. And yes, it was Ensign Ricky in an episode of Family Guy.
I can remember a drive in a 15-passenger van on an Oregon highway like that, en route to a summer camp back in the day. We had to stop for 20 minutes at this seedy little gas station in the woods while most of us laid down right on the pavement to try and get rid of the nausea. Good times.
Also, since you’re using WordPress now, you might appreciate this plugin: WordPress Tiger Administration, a nice little piece of code that makes the admin interface a lot more elegant. It’s at least worth it for the bigger text entry field, if nothing else.
Those roads are great for motorcycles. I’ll have to go there!
A few years back 4 of us were going skiing and we took one of those kind of routes and about halfway we stopped for boiled peanuts. About 45 minutes and 700 switchbacks later we had to stop and get out because the combination of the peanut smell and tight cornering made us all sick.
Weaver
You realize it was a trick — there _is_ no good way to Franklin, unless you’re taking Sky 4. And even then, it’s probably a bumpy ride most days.
Happy New Year!
Just be glad you’re not making the drive with a New Year’s Day hangover! That would be hell.
I didn’t go up from 178, but I did drive 64 from Asheville to Chattanooga once. At one part the road gets really narrow- if you are driving West there is a sheer rock wall a the edge of the road and if you are going East, it is a drop off into the Ocoee River gorge or something like that.
It could have been worse, you could have been working with Marla!