On Tuesday, or maybe it was Wednesday, might even have been Monday...some days run together like that, but whatever day, I was taking Nick to school and as I'm driving our normal route, I reached a point where I could see all manner of flashing blue lights, the kind on top of police vehicles. As I neared, I could see it was across the median on the opposing traffic side. At the first set of lights, I could see a black pickup truck that had been loaded onto a flat-bed truck, obviously having succumbed to an accident. Further observation revealed a large light/utility pole that was awkwardly bending over next to a twig of tree that had also sustained a similar bend. Continuing to drive, I noticed more and more sets of those flashing blue lights at intersections where they had to cut off traffic from traveling along that route, in fact, for several miles back from where the accident was.
I kept in mind that because of this, I would need to take a different route home. There were two options. Opt 1 would take me back along that road amidst the very heavy traffic backup in order to turn a direction further away from my route in order to parallel that route and return to the road I needed to get to. Or, opt 2, which took me around another part of town that's only slightly more distant but one I've taken on occasion for similar reasons. It's good to have alternate routes. I opted for option 2. As I travel along that route, I'm thinking to myself, "wow, sure is a lot of traffic this direction too" and wondering if just that many people had the same idea I did. At that point there were no other alternatives, so I continued on.
Just before I reached the location to where I needed to make a turn, traffic narrowed down to one lane for our direction. Oh dear!! A youngster in an itty bitty car about took off my front bumper cutting in front of me. It was not a day for good traffic. Then, along the side of the road was all that remained of a burned out something that appeared to take up the space of a motor home, but not even the framework was there, just the burnt debris about 6" or more deep. And as I turned where I needed to I then remembered "road construction", yep, the same construction area I encountered back on my return from the wet land at the end of July. This part of the city is putting in a round-a-bout and it's taking a toll on traffic, but wait! it gets better. I'm in the left lane and approaching are firetrucks, spaced out from each other, not one, not two, but three, and in between one and two, a car decides to come up along my driver's side hoping for a left turn and was only inches from my door as she tried to get out of the way of the trucks.
Then I came to where I needed to make a left turn and did so without incident, but after driving another distance, again someone thought they needed to be in my lane, right in front of me, right that minute, and again, a narrow brush of nearly having my bumper removed.
I was never so glad to get home as I was then. Oh, but then there was the return trip later that afternoon to pick Nick up from school. Yep, where the wreck had been early that morning, the road for the same distance was still closed to traffic as they had to replace the utility pole and possibly reconnect some electrical lines, so that time coming back we took opt. 1, which was better than the morning, but still not ideal. There are days like this that make me wish I'd stayed in bed and out of traffic. Even though the Lord kept me/us safe and secure, the frustrations of the drive sorely tested my patience and grace towards other drivers. Even so, I prayed that the drivers of the accident vehicles were not harmed, at least not badly. I will never know.
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