23½ hours with Nanette

What a surreal weekend. Stay Tuned shows in Dayton, OH with the Philharmonic went very well, and good attendance with over 1,400 people each night – pretty good for the typically dry month of January for the theatre, music scene. We left the Schuster Center a little after midnight Saturday night after load-out, then back to the hotel to pack. Mike, Daniel and I made plans to leave at 8a with the van to head back to Minneapolis. Terry and Kurt were driving to Florida over two days and Lorie was catching a ride to Green Bay with Phil to spend time with her family.

We left a little after 8 – Eastern time – with me driving and stopping at a nearby McDonald's for the boys' junk food breakfast fix. We listened to Bette Midler's Live at Last album she recorded in 1977. And so, during this strange day, our van was named Nanette…

Our Mapquest map took us through downtown Chicago, and I paid $7.85 in tolls from beginning to end. I stopped outside of Chicago to get gas and something to eat – Taco Bell, what else? We're so healthy…

Mike drove after lunch and I laid down for a nap at about 2:00p. And at 2:30p, Mike came to a stop. We had driven into some heavy fog and people were driving too fast – there was a 40 car pile up in 8 or 10 cars in front of us and another 40+ car pile up about 2½ miles behind us.

As soon as we stopped, I got up and look around and announced that I had to use the bathroom. Daniel said that wasn't going to be happening anytime soon. I saw dense fog around us and noticed traffic was stopped on the other side of the interstate too. We sat for a few minutes listening to Daniel's new Billy Joel CD, then I suggested listening to the first mix of Stay Tuned, which we were supposed to work on later that day in Wisconsin Rapids on our way back to Minneapolis.

An hour later, after watching over a dozen ambulances come and go along with people getting out of their cars and walk to the scene in front of us with cameras in hand, I asked Daniel to follow me with a blanket behind a nearby tall bush some other people had already visited. On our way back, we stopped a kid rollerblading back to his vehicle. He said there were accidents in front of and behind us with a least two people dead. News crews were walking past our van to get a story and emergency vehicles were driving the sides of the road leading up to the accidents.

I called my Mom and she searched the internet to find out what happened and would call back every so often to give us updates. There were over 100 vehicles in accidents affecting a roughly five-mile span outside and it was taking so long because officials were recreating the scene.

Our pianist Kurt Cowling called from the airport in Dayton. His flight to Milwaukee had been cancelled due to heavy fog and tried to warn us about the mess we were current in on I-90. He called our saving grace, aka Marina at the Dayton Philharmonic, and she took care of getting him a hotel room that night. (Thank you, Marina!!)

Once the sun went down, it started getting colder. As we grew hungry, Mike shared the rest of his Honey BBQ chips and I offered a vanilla yogurt and granola bars – no one took me up on the health stuff! We turned the van on only twice for 10 minutes to warm up and I bundled up the first bench seat with two fleece blankets (a pretty new embroidered one from Judy, Daniel's mom, for Christmas) and my winter coat. We listened to music on Daniel's computer until the battery died.

After 8½ hours, at 11:00p, we finally started moving forward. It was still quite foggy but I could see vehicles crushed beyond recognition to being cars and lots of emergency vehicles still parked as we passed the accidents. Daniel decided to drive us to Wisconsin Dells – about an hour away – and stop for some dinner there and see if we wanted to continue on to Mpls as we were still another 5 hours away. After a little stressful drive through the patchy fog, we stopped at Denny's in the Dells for some dinner/ breakfast. Daniel and I had 4 cups of coffee each with to go cups for both of us. Daniel said that if I could keep him up, he'd keep driving as long as road conditions were good. I turned up AC/DC's Dirty Deeds CD as we got onto I-94 and began my quest to keep Daniel awake. I asked him questions and made him tell me stories of his summer camp experiences in Arkansas.

We stopped in Eau Claire for gas and a bathroom break with all that coffee going through us. Daniel got a bottle of Mountain Dew, just to top him off. A reminder of college days…

Daniel and I dropped off Mike at his apartment a little after 5a Monday morning, then me at 5:30a. I finally fell around 7a after thanking God that I was able still alive and sleeping in my own bed. I had been awake for over 25 hours, after getting only 5 hours of sleep Saturday night. But I got up 2½ hours later at 9:30 – too many things to do and hard for me to sleep while it's daylight. Thankfully I got a good night sleep Monday night – I dropped out for 13 hours! Back to some sort of schedule; I'm always grateful to be home. We fly out next Wednesday to Orlando. YAY for Florida gigs in January!

~Sheridan