The comfort of being home for Thanksgiving is glorious. It is my favorite holiday, and I cannot wait to be with family, see friends and sleep in.
What I can wait for is the actual journey to get there. The six hours (by my dad’s count; five according to my friend Martin) it takes to get from Milwaukee to Toledo, Ohio is arduous, especially around the holidays.
I know that it does not seem that far away – and that Marquette students are from all over the place, so I should not complain. I do not have to deal with airports, checked luggage or too much expense.
I do, however, have to deal with Chicago traffic. There is only a brief span of time during regular business hours when traffic is reasonable enough to get through the city in a timely manner. Usually, that time frame interferes with my class schedule, so I am bound to be sitting in traffic for at least an hour on my way to and from home.
It’s even worse if venturing on the MegaBus, which makes every trip hours longer. Despite its promise of a cheap ride with free Wi-Fi, I have sworn off that tardy monstrosity ever since I got stranded in Chicago my freshman year. My dad, being the saint of a man that he is, drove all the way to pick up his homesick daughter. It ended up being a lovely experience with deep-dish pizza, but the stress of the situation did me in and turned me off from buses.
Luckily, there is always a fleet of Marquette students from Toledo, which means ample opportunities for rides on breaks. I have been known to befriend people just for a seat in their car, and I refuse to apologize for my resourcefulness. Now I have a car up here, so people are befriending me. But just because I have the keys does not make the trip without stress.
Until this past fall break, the worst I’ve had to deal with was bad drivers. Swear to you, one chauffeur French braided her hair while driving in a construction zone. Another texted the entire trip. It is very scary to be in the back seat sometimes.
My last ride home, however, could have easily been on the road to hell.
It was raining and windy. We didn’t leave until 4 p.m., which meant traffic for at least the first 150 miles. By the time we finally sped up, I noticed my car was slightly wobbly and making a clunking noise. I chose to ignore it at first, but eventually decided it needed to be checked out.
Luckily, my pal Joe was my co-pilot. We stopped at a shady inner-city gas station just south of U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago. We were greeted with some interesting folk and a definitely flat tire. Joe and I made the executive decision to fill it up and continue onwards. It was cold, late and raining, and this was not the spot to wait hours for AAA.
This, of course, proved to be the wrong decision. The car was running slow and gas was going faster than usual. We stopped again in Indiana — about 70 miles from my exit — only to find that the “leaking” tire was actually blown. Whoops.
It was about 11 p.m., and we were so close to bed and parents and homey things. The freshman gals in the backseat were blissfully unaware, but anxious to be home — their first time back since college began. So Joe and I decided to test our luck.
Our luck worked, and we got home in one piece.
My dad, however, nearly killed me when he walked out of the house to find a flattened tire with a bubble in it the size of a fist. The man at the tire store told him we were lucky we made it ten miles. My dad told him we made it 210. He gasped.
I am lucky I can get home for breaks, and even luckier it usually is without incident. But I now have my AAA card ready in my wallet, should any such disaster occur. Safe travel is worth the feast and family waiting at home.