Road to Nowhere...

I hardly ever go anywhere, especially during rush hour traffic. I'm usually pretty lucky when I do, though, I'm normally going against traffic, and I know the back streets to take, I drove downtown and back daily for years, no problem. I can go all over town in a couple of hours normally. I had some errands to run today, the first of which was to pick up our taxes from our accountant on the far west side of Houston. Being me, they closed at 5 pm so I left the house around 3:30 (that's early for me).

My list was to make a swing past several places that close earlier than I'm usually out - check on a new box of contacts I ordered almost two weeks ago, make a bank deposit, pick up some steaks for us and my parents at Omaha Steaks, get some more shampoo and some hard to find facial moisturizer (I'm after more of the Clinique CX stuff), I had my list and I was off...

First stop was at the optometrist because it was on the way to the freeway. I'm on my last pair of my normal strength contacts, which makes me nervous, so I ordered a new box when I put in the new ones, but for some reason they hadn't arrived when I checked at the end of last week, they had to be in by now. First freak bad luck of the day - no, they were part of an order that had gotten lost and had been reordered, they might come in later this afternoon. Crap, I don't want to go another weekend with no backup contacts and mine are almost at the two week limit, so I left my cell phone number in case they came in with today's shipment.

So I drove around to the back of Meyerland mall and made a deposit at the ATM, and then jumped on the 610 loop heading north to run across town and pick up our taxes (at i-10 and Dairy Ashford for anyone that knows the city). According to Mapquest it's a little over 19 miles from my house and/or 25 minutes (at 3 in the morning I guess). I was going along nicely till I noticed one of the flashing signs that read 'freeway closed at Memorial Dr.', which was two exits before where I needed to to turn off onto I-10. A few seconds after I read that I came up over the overpass just before the Galleria and.. everyone was stopped. So I did what some of the other idiots were doing (I was in the right lane, though) and just got off at Westheimer, I'd go ahead and get my steaks, there was a store on the corner of Westheimer (and one in the area I was going to in West Houston), so maybe traffic would be cleared up in a few minutes (ha!).

So one successful errand marked off the list, with three boxes of steaks in the freezer bag in my trunk, I headed north again. And everything was just stopped. Not the normal afternoon rush hour(s) traffic jam, something really bad. OK, I went up the feeder to the next intersection, and there were cars stopped on the next entrance ramp too. So I decided to make a u-turn and head down one of the westbound streets and bypass the whole two freeway interchange. Happily for me I had grabbed a new CD I'd just gotten in the mail from Amazon on the way out the door (the original Nena self-titled German CD, I always had the English version), so I'd get to listen to it while I waited in traffic. And waited. and waited.

After about half a dozen light cycles, I made it under the freeway. People were backing up on the feeder, stopping in the middle of the intersection, preventing us from crossing. That should have been my first clue something was really, really bad in the Galleria. And then I sat, and sat, and there was nowhere to turn off but residential streets and into business parks and I am not at all familiar with the back streets on San Felipe, I inched along with everyone else, surrounded by construction, concrete barriers, passing overheated cars and just thinking 'Oh my God, what the fuck is going on??" alternating with, "my husband is never going to believe the traffic was this bad".

But he called (I was afraid to pick up right away, this was just too crazy), and left a message that there was some sort of huge mess on 610 and he 'hoped I had avoided that area'. Good, at least it wasn't just me. So after the fourth playing of my Nena CD, and inching along about three miles I gave up and called him back and told him I'd try again tomorrow, and headed south down Voss. At least I got my damned steaks.

The news reported there was a fiery crash on the West Loop earlier in the afternoon involving an 18-wheeler and four other cars. Don't I have the best timing? But at least I was alone in the car. I would have rather have my cat in the car with me (bouncing off the walls and yowling, she hates riding in the car) than my husband, he would have just gone bananas. I spent years sitting in traffic, and I know sometimes it's bad for no apparent reason but I don't think I'll be going to the Galleria area for a while... And yet another reason I love shopping online.

I have to make another attempt to drive out and pick up the taxes tomorrow. I'll be heading out the opposite direction, straight west to Beltway 8, hope nothing happens that direction. And I'll be leaving a few hours earlier, just in case. And bringing a different CD to listen to. I really like 99 Luftballons but I think I'll be having nightmares in German tonight.

my rear view mirror... and this was on the way home in the good traffic...

Posted by Morticia at April 07, 2006 02:26 AM