Road trip

Doesn't that subject line smack of fun times, freedom, the wind blowing through your hair? Yeah, well, don't get too excited. This afternoon Ken dropped me at the airport so I could pick up my rental car for my trip to Ithaca tomorrow. Yup, Ithaca. Ithaca, New York. Home of Cornell University. I'm sure it's very nice...when it's not snowing.

Somehow I have managed to screw myself this fall by picking universities to visit that are in colder places than Philadelphia. A couple weeks ago I flew to Pittsburgh and back, and I experienced my first snow flurry of the season. It wasn't horrible, but since I still had a nagging cough from the bug du jour that had infected us all around that time, it was not all fun and games. The cold air made me want to spit out my clogged lungs and start over with new ones.

And now tomorrow I will head to a city where the temperature is going to top out in the low 40s. What was I thinking? At least I ditched the idea of traveling to Penn State's main campus this winter. I told my boss that that trip will just have to wait until the spring thaw. I'm no fan of cold weather as it is, and I have to stop seeking it out via business travel. Next year maybe I'll be smart enough to choose to visit the deep south during November/December. Or maybe sunny southern California, though that long a flight makes me want to live in a Star Trek episode and have a transporter beam instead.

Let's just hope that the rain that is supposed to start in PA and NY sometime tomorrow night waits until I'm home. Cuz I really don't want to find out how my awesome Chevy Cobalt from Hertz handles in slick conditions. I shoulda taken the Mercury Mariner they offered me at first, but no, I didn't want a car that big. Silly Sara.