We drove up to Illinois for the holidays last night. We left our place around 5:30 (we live on the north west side of atlanta) and we made it to the northeast side of Atlanta by about 7:30. That trip can be done in 45 minutes, but not very often these days.

I drove all night, and the family slept. I was listening to Dan Brown's Angels and Demons, which I've been putting off because I read a lot of the original Illuminatus books many many years ago, and his stuff seems like a sequel to me. But it was good for a road trip.

We didn't have any real problems with the drive, and then we got into Illinois, my home state. Illinois and Iowa and several other northern states have employed the use of movable rotating speed bumps on their interstate system. Their purpose is not to slow anyone down, just to keep you on your toes, or maybe I should say keep you on your does.

These speed bumps are popularly referred to elsewhere as 'Deer.' I was driving along side a semi trailer, passing it at about 70 miles per hour. I was in the left lane and right in the middle of a lane a speed bump of a deer suddenly appears in front of me in my lane.

Fortunately the speedbump was not upright, these are referred to as 'soon to be dead deer'. This speed bump had graduated from the soon to be dead deer status to the ever more practical status of temporary speed bump. I had just enough time to swerve a little bit and miss the main portion of the deers body, but I still ran over a very large portion of it. It was an extremely loud hit shaking the entire van and waking everyone up.

I pulled over to make sure we hadn't blow an tire or created a bubble in the tire, checking it with a flashlight. No holes or bumps but lots of speed bump paint.

So we got back on the road and drove the rest of the way to Peoria, making it here in reasonable time. I slept this morning and got up and went jogging and slowly recovering my bearing from the all night drive.

Hope everyone has a happy and safe holiday if you celebrate anything this week!