STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Thursday, 27 December 2012

[Demeter]

9. The weather, as we traveled there, and back again

was highly evocative of Rodina, the Motherland, as Russians call their country.

We left in lightly falling snow, a couple of inches on the ground, and drove into Detroit without much delay. People weren't doing 70, but 60 was possible most of the way. Especially where we crossed into Wayne County, where the salting had been effective, driving wasn't too bad.

In Detroit proper, the streets were full of snow in various stages of driven-over. The main thoroughfares were plowed, but it's a big city and there's a lot of roads. So most of it was untouched by snow removal.

The wind was quite fierce, blizzard conditions, and the snow continued to fall as we toured the museum and the exhibit. When we finally left for home, there were maybe 6 inches of snow accumulated. Once I defrosted the car and picked up my passengers, we began the long trip home, in a blizzard, during rush hour.

You wouldn't think that a city as empty as Detroit has become would still have a rush hour, but it does. Traffic was crawling at 15 mph until nearly the city limits.

Once we were past the airport though, I could manage 40 mph. We heard reports of accidents involving trucks and spinouts, but on the route we took, only saw one disabled vehicle and one that had ended up pointing in the wrong direction on the median. The scariest part were the sissies doing 15 mph, and the trucks, pushing 50. It took twice as long to get home as it did to get to the city. But we made it in good shape.

I shoveled out the driveway (30 minutes) and prepared to do the paper route.