The Journey, part 2.

I'm in Beckley now, hanging out with Ixi. The drive today was less eventful than yesterday, even though there's a lot more to see in Tennessee than in Oklahoma or Arkansas. Unfortunately, I saw mostly orange road cones and tractor trailers and cars going 65 in the left lane. I swear, after having no road work at all yesterday and very little traffic, it seemed like once an hour one of the lanes was shut down today and there were so many trucks. But at least I made it safely. And ultimately, the drive wasn't too bad.

I had a scary moment about five or ten minutes after I got back on the interstate this morning: I saw a black dog run across the road about 100 yards ahead of me. It scared me, but I was thankful that there were no cars at that moment. Then right before I got to that spot, a beagle ran out of the median where the black dog had come, crossed the left lane and then froze in the right lane where I was driving. I barely had time to react. I swerved to the right onto the shoulder at 70 mph, and the car behind me swerved to the left into the other lane, which was luckily clear. I hope that little dog made it. I thought for sure I was going to hit it. Normally, I would have been pretty upset if I hit a dog (which I never have), but now that I have a dog, I would have been devastated.