Washington Lanes, Bay City, Michigan, January 22, 2005
A great adventure occurs surrounding my Bay City gig. There are three pages of photos. Just follow the links at the bottom, and you'll make it. Remember, if it's snowing, you'll have to slow down just a smidge.
This morning from the National Weather Service:
... WINTER
STORM WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM EST THIS EVENING...
SNOW WILL
CONTINUE THROUGH TODAY... HEAVY AT TIMES... WITH TOTAL ACCUMULATION IN THE 6 TO
10 INCH RANGE.
IN ADDITION
TO FALLING SNOW... THERE WILL BE CONSIDERABLE BLOWING AND DRIFTING... THAT WILL
REDUCE VISIBILITY TO NEAR ONE QUARTER MILE AT TIMES. WIND GUSTS NEAR 40 MPH THIS
AFTERNOON MAY GENERATE NEAR BLIZZARD CONDITIONS.
WIND GUSTS
NEAR 40 MPH WILL BE POSSIBLE THIS AFTERNOON... WHICH WILL REDUCE VISIBILITY IN
FALLING AND BLOWING SNOW.
ANY TRAVEL IS
STRONGLY DISCOURAGED. IF YOU LEAVE THE SAFETY OF BEING INDOORS... YOU ARE
PUTTING YOUR LIFE AT RISK.
I awake this morning at the Super 8 in Jackson, MI (that's the lovely Tudor architecture you can see in the photo), and I see that I must unbury my car.
The snow is so deep it comes up level where my car door opens.
I'm dug out and I hit the freeway. Here's the on ramp.
Notice where the needle is in my spedometer, and then you can see the "SPEED LIMIT 70" sign ahead. I do get up a bit more than 22 MPH, I'm just feelings things out right now.
The freeway. I can sort of tell there's a road.
Let's restate from the weather forecast: "ANY TRAVEL IS STRONGLY DISCOURAGED. IF YOU LEAVE THE SAFETY OF BEING INDOORS... YOU ARE PUTTING YOUR LIFE AT RISK." Anything to make a gig.
The headliner whom I'm working with tonight and last night is Chili Chialis, however I learn he couldn't make it through the weather to Bay City. This is horrible, because it'll be the first time since keeping my online photo road journal that I haven't gotten a photo of the headliner. Wait! I'll just use last night's flyer, which I saved. It'll have to do. The lovely backdrop is the bedspread at Paul's Motel.
Oh, by the way, here's my bathroom at Paul's Motel.
So it's up to me to do a one-woman show. No worries. I did an hour last month at that charity event, and it went well. So tonight, I do just shy of an hour-long show for the 45 people who made it out. I have a blast!
Here I am post-show with a bunch of cool ladies from the audience.
Me with Tracy, the co-owner of Washington Lanes. This is more than just a bowling alley, by the way. It has two banquet rooms (one of which is where our show is) and two bars.
John, the bartender.