Day 1: It was a Dark and Stormy Night.... My husband Jim drove me to the Pittsburgh Amtrak station in a rainstorm. I had, once again, misjudged my departure date, and I was already miserably sick with bronchitis, bursting into alarming whoops, especially when I tried to sleep or lie down. If it had been Myrtle Beach as usual this year, I'd have had the option to go down early when I felt the first signs coming on, but everything had been arranged for November 30th. So I stayed a few days longer than usual, and got sicker and sicker. And this year we were heading north, driving all day in the wrong direction towards colder and colder weather, with 30-degree temperatures (Fahrenheit, and ten degrees F below my bronchitis trigger point). predicted for Chicago,
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