Driving to Green Bay.

In case you're wondering why is Althouse getting such a late start this morning, I was up until 3 a.m. after driving, beginning at 8 p.m., to Green Bay and back. It's all about that snow storm back east. A flight got cancelled, the next flight -- after a motel stay -- was late, a connection was missed, and the only way to avoid a second night in an airport motel was to fly into Green Bay instead of Madison. You'd still arrive at 10:30, but you'd arrive 130 miles away. I was just relaxing into a cozy night of TV -- mellowing out as two "I Shouldn't Be Alive" guys were getting horrendously lost in the Amazon -- and then, minutes later, I'm fueling up the car for the 5 hour round trip to Green Bay.

Speaking of green, it was St. Patrick's Day, not a good time to be driving after midnight, especially on that 20 mile stretch of Route 26 where it's just 2-lane blacktop, and there's a long line of cars and school buses streaming toward you. I guess they were coming back from a sporting event in Madison. There are always a few drivers who think they can improve their situation by passing one car in front of them, and I'd like to thank all those idiots who trusted me to slow down to avoid a head-on collision. When I finally got into Madison at 1:30 a.m., the streets were flowing with young revellers. As I drove across State Street, a young woman yelled at me, "Don't drive drunk!" -- which was for her a big joke, because she assumed everyone out in a car right now was drunk. But I was driving-all-the-way-to-Green-Bay-and-back sober.

So we made it back safe and wide awake. And those guys got out of the Amazon, too, because the show is called "I Shouldn't Be Alive." I don't know how they did it, and I'd like to know. But I'm glad they did, and I'm glad to be back in Madison, Wisconsin on March 18, 2007.