There and Back Again¹

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge to Annapolis
(Source)

As I write this it's the 5th of January in the Year of Our Lord Two-thousand and Twenty-two. Yup, that's right Anno Domini, ain't nothing common about this era.

But I digress.

A fortnight ago The Missus Herself and Your Humble Scribe embarked upon yet another trip to Maryland for Christmas (this was the third). Cuppla things before we head down the road -

1. I had a toothache, old Number 6 was in the process of giving up the ghost
2. The weather was absolutely horrid.

The toothache had not progressed to "Omigod just fire trucking shoot me, okay" but it showed promise of doing just that. So you're probably asking yourself, "Why the Hell did you make the trip Sarge?"

Well ...

The pain was under control with antibiotics and over the counter pain medication, it was, one might say, tolerable. Besides which, two grandkids were expecting us. (Not to mention their parents.) So I viewed it as an obligation. Also, there was zero chance of getting in to see an endodontist before the holiday.

"Oh don't worry Sarge, people are always canceling appointments before a holiday." I was assured.

That's when I realized, only an idiot would cancel an appointment which promised to relieve pain, especially before a holiday. So I was faced with two options -

1. Stay home and suffer, just me and my better half and our lovely cat or
2. Hit the road, throwing caution to the winds, and spend Christmas with The Nuke and her family in a place I simply adore².

No doubt Anya would rather we stay home, but ...

Option #2 was really the only option. After all, it's not like we were going on vacation to some Third World country where dentistry consists of some dude with a pair of pliers and a couple of assistants to hold you down. No, I checked, they have endodontists in Maryland, quite a few actually.

So off we went.

Now as to the weather. It was a drizzling kind of rain, coming down fast enough to make the windshield wipers work their rubbery butts off trying to keep the view clear. Not to mention the rolling fog banks, also known as 18-wheelers. I swear, the amount of moisture being thrown into the air was more than that falling from the sky. So I tried very hard to keep my distance from those.

Fortunately by the time we'd rolled a few miles into Connecticut the sun burst forth and began to dry the roads. But that presented Your Humble Scribe with another problem.

Glare ...

From the sun ...

For as one drives in a generally southerly direction in the winter, guess where the sun is, the entire bloody day?

Why to the south of course!

I couldn't decide which was worse, the never ending drizzle and the rolling fog banks or the sun beating into my eyes most of the trip. (Spoiler alert, the drizzle was worse, car has sun visors which did the trick for the most part, even if it felt like driving a tank using only the vision blocks.)

I had made the decision to go up to the Tappan Zee, which Waze agreed with, Waze also decided that the Merritt Parkway would be the way to go. I was reluctant at first, until I remembered that that route has lots of trees, which would help keep the glare down. But it presented another set of problems ...

Namely the other drivers on the road. I swear that western Connecticut was holding an Idiot Conference somewhere and they had sent them all out to drive on the Merritt Parkway. Then I remembered, the first time we'd gone down that road was at the beginning of WuFlu Pandemic when most folks were staying at home.

Not now.

But eventually we made it past Connecticut and into New Jersey via the Tappan Zee Bridge (I do not recognize it's official name).

As we got closer to Maryland I was wondering what traffic through the Baltimore area would be like, as we were damned close to rush hour. Never found out, Waze said "Let's go down the 301 on the Eastern Shore!"

Though that area is mostly farmland and annoyingly flat, it's also rather sparsely populated, so I said, "Why not, let's do this!" (The only sign of habitation I saw during the hour or so it took to traverse the Eastern Shore was a single farmhouse decorated for Christmas, perhaps a mile off the highway, it was lovely but it was also lonely. I swear there ain't much out that way. Bear in mind the sun was down by this time, say around 1645.)

Which is how we got to go over that bridge in the opening photo, at night, two lanes of traffic heading into Annapolis and four lanes heading away from that fair town. I had no idea that the westbound portion of the bridge could be used for eastbound traffic. Note that double yellow line. Last time I was down there it was three lanes west, three lanes east. Not at rush hour apparently.

But eventually we arrived at Chez Tuttle et Nuke and a happy reunion with the kids and grandkids. Had a nice meal, got to bed early and ...

OMIGOD THAT FIRE TRUCKING HURTS!

Yes, old Number 6 decided that now, right now, was the time to explode into raging agony. Which it did. The Nuke was on the phone for a while trying to find an endodontist who did emergency 24-hour service. Though the internet advertised a number of those, not a single one answered their phone in the middle of the night, all she could get was their answering service which said "we'll call you back, rub some dirt on it ..."

Not really. But as I was pretty tired from the drive I did manage to fall asleep, to be awakened by The Nuke saying I had an appointment at 0930 and it would cost me $2100 up front as it was an "out of network" dentist. (Apparently an "out of his mind" dentist as well. When I told my regular dentist of that price, he may have indeed used the word "bullshit" to describe that price.)

As I realized that I was no longer in pain (and having yet to take my meds) I told her, "No, cancel that. I'm fine."

So she did. Though the pain came back a little bit on Christmas Eve it was tolerable and actually pretty much gone for good by Christmas Day. (And yes, the tribe informed me that if I said, "It's a Christmas miracle" one more time then I would be in pain once more, just not from a dying tooth.)

Anyhoo, as I had an endodontist appointment three days after Christmas here in Little Rhody, I did think about rescheduling it for later. Now if we had done this year what we did last year, we would have been stuck down there in the snowstorm they had on Monday. Maybe. (Last year we left on the 3rd of January.)

So we opted to head out on the Monday after Christmas (this is the back again part) in order to get that tooth fixed. Well, ain't no fixing it -

(Source)

Yup, deader 'n a doornail.

But my endodontist (great guy, had been an Air Force dentist at one point in his life, we did spend some time playing the "so where were you stationed" game, we had never crossed paths) fixed me up, it was rather painless except when he bayoneted, er, gave me an injection in the roof of my mouth. Don't really recommend that unless it's absolutely necessary, which he assured me it was.

Earlier this week my regular dentist gave me a temporary crown. (What? I can't be king permanently? Oh, different sort of crown, alright, I'll shut up now.) Now I await the arrival of the permanent crown. (So I do get to ... never mind.)

Anyhoo ...

In other news ...

The book is finished. I decided not to continue the story of the Brits and the Poles in this book but tell their story in a future installment. I mean the book is already over 800 pages (yes, single spaced ...) adding more might have been a major project.

The British and Polish bits were very necessary to the telling of the story of the Falaise Pocket but as the main effort of the story was to follow the Americans through the Hürtgenwald, the Ardennes, and the chase to the Rhine and beyond, the Brits and Poles had served their purpose. They also fought against the German tankers who would figure prominently in the battles in the Harz Mountains near the end of the story.

To give them the justice they deserve would have probably added another 200 to 300 pages, which would delay the book further. So later, hopefully soon.

But the main effort has come to a close. Now I need to find a publisher, I'm not keen on self-publishing, I mean to make this writing gig a third career. We shall see.

So until next time.

(Beans are you ever going to publish "World Class"? Inquiring (and lazy) minds want to know ...)

¹ With apologies to Bilbo Baggins, via J.R.R. Tolkien.

² It's true, I love Maryland. Go figure!