April's Life Adventures

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Traffic

What is it about heavy traffic that causes everyone to become berserk maniacs? It is almost as though traffic in and of itself shouldn't anger people, but it always does. It also occurred to me that one of the benefits of living in a small town is the lack of traffic. Seriously, my town has all of two traffic lights and I love it. This past 4th of July, I was invited to participate in the freedom festival in a neighboring town. It was a spectacular event, great food, great music, and even greater fireworks.

My kids clapped and danced to the wonderfully choreographed fireworks show. By the time we got to our car, it was well past their bedtime. Grumpy kids were soon to be the least of our worries. You see, the highway patrol shut down the freeway on-ramps in some areas, thinking to alleviate some of the traffic congestion of past events. The line to get out of our parking lot was not very long, everyone was attempting to be courteous, yet we sat for over 90 minutes wondering if we should just get a hotel room for the night,(the clerks at the counter informed us that we were a year too late for that reservation).

To our complete shock, the line in our parking lot began to move, inch by inch, as we made our way towards the exit. Our well meaning police officers directed us towards a detour around the freeway, seeing as they weren't allowing us to get on. We found the freeway again an hour later, after navigating many strange and unknown backroads, just hoping that the line in front of us knew where they were going because we didn't.

We were overjoyed to find a road finally that we knew. However, once again, as soon as people had a little room, they became crazy and aggressive. Throughout the night, people seemed to be getting along, taking turns, and playing follow the leader, but the second that they had a few lanes of highway available, anger seemed to boil to the otherwise serene surface.

Jockying for position on the highway, we eventually made it home around 2 am. Nevermind that my husband had to be to work at 7 the next morning, we were just happy to be home. This experience reminded me that even though we have moved away from those big cities and their traffic problems, we are not immune. Bad decisions by the police officers and other road crew people left many of us feeling like the magnificent show earlier was not worth the trouble. Will I attend next year? Probably, but I will buy a map beforehand and find my own route home.

Posted by April_Mommy :: 9:35 AM :: 0 comments