Mood piece

US23, through the Appalachians. Ohio, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina.

Little pockets of cloud in the hollows, looking as if you could throw a net over them and keep them for your collection--until you get a bit closer and they thin out, almost vanishing as you come alongside. Layers of cloud sliding by the hills beside you, dimming the remnants of the fall color behind them like spun-sugar bridal veils. (How's that for a mixed metaphor?) And then you realize one of those veils is above you, just as you drive into it.

You chuckle a bit as you pass the signs that say LIMITED VISIBILITY WHEN LIT (they're not lit). You can see the signs. Barely.

You leave the fog behind quickly enough. Climb through it, actually. And at length the drizzling rain takes over. You notice the difference in the colors as a different bit of weather softens them. And you wish you were a painter.

Hope you don't mind all the travelogue stuff. I could dwell on the route I was ordered to take (through TWO fairly hefty business districts, expensive parked cars inches from the trailer's back corner as I wove through the not-quite-straight thru lanes).

Or the stoplight that changed at the perfect moment and left me riding the brakes (ABS jerking away) to a stop 16 feet into the intersection. (About a 2-second yellow it was. Good thing it wasn't a 4-way...)

Or the temperature gauge suddenly climbing into the red as I climbed one long steep slope. In the rain. In fifty-degree weather. With less than half my rated load. And then doing it again, a few miles later. (The fan never kicked in either time. Looks like this truck's going in the shop when I get back...)

But why dwell on all that when I have cloud-veiled slopes, and mountaintops, and gorges, and man-made valleys (blasted through the living rock to make a way for me) and--well, you get the idea. I'm just not in a mood to be in a mood. Not with all this to look at.

No deep thoughts. Not this time. So there.