Sitting in Traffic

Yes, I am writing a blog post at 3am. What are you going to do about it? Apparently nothing, and apparently I can do nothing about it either. Well, I guess I could just not write it, but that wouldn’t help the fact that I’m still stuck awake at this hour. Since I just finished reading Fight Club again, and I’ve already exhausted much of my other reading for this trip, it seems the only thing I really have left to do is write.

This has been the longest trip to Indiana I’ve ever participated in. In fact, in the time I’ve been in the car, I could have now almost gone to and back from my grandparent’s house (in optimal weather conditions, of course). That’s right, I’m approaching coming up on being in the car for twelve hours. For a six hour trip.

We left knowing there were adverse weather conditions, but honestly they weren’t that bad. A little ice here, a little snow there. No problem. We just took our time. There were times we went twenty-five, there were times we went sixty-five. I’m not sure we ever fully went the speed limit, but we went fast enough at least.

All those cars with their lights flashing. Why are your Hazard Lights flashing? It seems every three or four cars there would be another that had their Hazards turned on. Attention Everyone: Your hazard lights are to alert the traffic around you that, yes, you are indeed doing something out of the norm. When everyone around is going twenty-five due to slushy and unpleasant road conditions, your Hazards are only a nuisance. On top of that, you have to keep in mind people can’t tell when your break lights are on or if you’re switching lanes when you leave your Hazard lights on.

Highway 32 goes between Lebanon and Crawfordsville, Indiana, essentially connecting I-72 to I-465. I-465 is the bypass that goes around Indianapolis. My grandparent’s live in Carmel, on the North side. The interstate East of Champagne, Illinois was fine; slushy, but not too icy. Highway 32, on the other hand, was not fine. It was a perfect glaze of ice. We were on it for only a few minutes before retreating back to the interstate to take the long way to I-465 (continuing on I-72 toward downtown Indianapolis).

Apparently the long was a bad choice as well. That’s where we’re stuck right now, and have been for well over an hour and a half. I think it was around midnight, actually, that traffic just stopped moving. Now we’ve had snow plows, Highway Patrol vehicles, and the like all pass us on the shoulder, but the traffic remains at a stand still. Maybe the road ahead is super icy, so they’ve closed it. Maybe there was some atrocious accident that they, for one reason or another, just can’t get cleaned up. I’m not really sure. Nobody’s told us, that’s for sure, and the issue with it being such an ungodly hour of the morning is that nobody on the radio is reporting anything about anything.

So we’re stuck. Without knowledge. Without food. Without water. Oh, and I am very thirsty, I might add. You know, being stuck like this isn’t even the worst part. The worst part is that I have to go to the bathroom!