Jen's Interesting Day

Jen had an interesting day. She and a friend from work, another Jen, volunteered to help out the army. There is a local group of soldiers that are deploying soon for Iraq. They are tuning up some of their survival and rescue skills before they leave. Jen and Jen volunteered to play wounded.

This training was held in a large arena that was set up with war noises, obstacles, smoke, etc. Jen was supposed to be wounded with an amputated arm. Her friend, Jen, was supposed to be dead. They were dressed in clothes that were drenched in (pretend) blood. Jen's arm was tied close to her body and hidden in her shirt, while there was a fake semi-detached arm next to her.

The men practiced first aid and rescue all day from 9 in the morning to 5:30 late afternoon. Jen had a good time. They took a lot of pictures and I understand that some of them will be in the newspaper. The TV cameras were there too. Did I mention that the girls got paid fifty dollars each for doing this?

The two girls were asked if they wanted to help out next Wednesday. I'm sure that if Jen doesn't have to work, she will.

Fog!

I drove the mini-bus home from Valley City in the thickest fog that I've ever seen. Imagine driving your car with the windshield all fogged up. That's what it was like. I could see the lines on the road go by, but not until I was passing them. That's all I could see. For a while I followed a pickup, which gave up and pulled over to the side of the road. I knew we were going by Casselton when there was a glow of lights overhead. I told the kids to watch for signs..... which was silly because we could not see any signs or the poles in which they were attached to.

The first sign that we saw was lit up overhead sign stating that West Fargo was the next exit....which meant that we missed our exit. I continued on to the Horace exit which was visible. The fog was somewhat less thick at this point so at least I knew where we were.

You know that beautiful thick frost that appears on tree branches? Well I watched that frost thicken on my mirrors......not only on the mirror frames but the glass parts....making the mirrors useless. (I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to see anything in them anyway, but I was hoping to see lights from anything that came up behind me.)

I took the hwy 16 turn and was back into the blinding fog. The only reason that I knew when we had gotten to our turn on the Kindred Hwy was because of the bumps grooved into the road that are suppose to wake you up to the realization that you are coming to an intersection. I chuckled to myself when I habitually looked left and then right for oncoming traffic. I couldn't see across the road, much less any cars coming.

As we drove into Kindred and also visibility, I experienced a vibration throughout my body like my nerve ending were frazzled..... my teeth were chattering even though my mouth wasn't closed. I've never experienced this before, but than I've never experienced anything as nerve-wracking as driving through that thick of fog.