Drive Back to Indy

This morning we woke up to the sound of rain. As the morning progressed, and we were eating breakfast in our room, it picked up to a pretty good rain storm. And great, we are leaving this morning and didn’t pack a rain jacket or umbrella. We thought we had timed it pretty good by leaving after it seemed to have let up but about half way to the bus stop it started to pour. Once we saw that the bus stop was packed and there was no cover, Mike was able to buy an umbrella from a most timely (or perhaps just opportunistic) walking umbrella salesman, which kept us from getting completely drenched. We were pretty happy to see our bus pull up a few minutes later. At the next stop we were relishing in the fact that we didn’t have any luggage to haul around. Oh, those poor souls. We are also happy that we took the advice of the hotel to walk a bit further to the first bus stop. We had a comfy seat and perhaps a smug expression when we pulled up to the second bus stop in town with dozens of tourists standing in the rain. And then watching them try to get their luggage under the bus as cars were honking, trying to pass with barely any room, the bus driver pulling away before everyone was on. I will be reminding myself to pack very light when we head north for a few weeks of traveling before heading home! And somehow we made it on a bus to Sant’Agata, well with just a short walk in the rain. It was good to get into the dry car and start our way back to Independence. A pretty uneventful drive until there was a detour off the highway. It routed us along a 2 lane road through small villages which was nice until we got stuck behind a huge truck going about 20 miles an hour. Our turn and moment finally came to pass and we were off. But were quickly tailed by a car that had been about 10 cars back and making some fast (read “crazy”) moves to get past the hold up. We had just been talking about how despite all the crazy drivers, you never see an accident. Well, we spoke too soon. We came up to a small bridge on a turn with a semi approaching in the other lane. We slowed down to take the curve but the fast car right behind us wasn’t able to slow down in enough time and slid right into the semi. It appeared that it wasn’t too serious and we debated on whether to stop but kept on going. Plus there was a line of cars behind that semi as well who were witness and spoke the language. And then it wasn’t far until we were in another line of traffic at a dead stop for about half an hour. Once we got through it there appeared to have been another accident. We were happy to make it back to Sibari safe and sound. We took advantage of the car and stopped at the grocery store, and since this was our only chance to do shopping for over a week, we stocked up. There is no ‘running to the store’ from the marina. Our poor fridge is packed to the gills! It is good to be back on the boat and we are looking forward to a pretty mellow week before we head to Rome.