Yesterday I was supposed to meet Steve for lunch at Cracker Barrel in Wilkes-Barre, at 12:30. And I got absorbed into one of the worst traffic clusterfucks I’ve ever encountered during my long, undistinguished life. This screenshot from my phone tells part of the story. As you can see, it’s 1:15 when I grabbed it — a full 45 minutes after I was supposed to be there. And the Barrel was a mere 2.4 miles from where I was sitting, but still a 27-minute journey!
I was losing it, man. I was boxed in on all sides by tractor trailers, and some unknown claustrophobia was starting to bubble up. Ya know? I felt trapped, was agitated about being so late, and moving toward a full freakout. But I was able to maintain, somehow.
I ordered my lunch over the phone, with Steve acting as the intermediary between me and the waitress. I wanted him to just hand her the phone, but he played the delicious home cookin’ middleman. And, thankfully, it didn’t take a full 27 minutes to get there. It probably took between 15 and 20, and they were bringing our food out as I angrily entered the scene.
So, we had a rushed lunch. Grrr… I still needed to arrive at work at a reasonable time. It certainly wouldn’t be my scheduled start time of 2, but I had a management meeting at 3, and definitely needed to arrive before then. So, we were rifling down our meals and didn’t get to talk as much as I’d hoped. It was highly unsatisfying, the whole experience.
But Steve had made a purchase of the West Virginia craft beer I love — Devil Anse IPA — and I paid him for that and we made the transfer from his trunk to mine. Plus, he gave me a can of a “black IPA” made by the same company. It’s called Mothman. I’ll be testing that one out on Saturday. Oh yeah.
So, at least I got a shitload of fantastic, not-available-in-Pennsylvania beer out of the deal. Steve didn’t get much, unfortunately. He just hung around a Cracker Barrel for half the day, waiting on my husky ass to arrive. I feel kinda bad about that.
And by the way, I thought I’d get fancy with it and take backroads to work from there. But they were all messed up too. I arrived at the 3 o’clock meeting about 10 minutes late. I mean, this traffic jam — created by road construction I heard — was absolutely BIBLICAL in nature. In fact, the cashier at the restaurant asked if I was traveling southbound. When I told her I was, she said, “Don’t do it. Just go home.” I wanted to call my boss and tell her that Betty at the Barrel advised me not to report for work today but suspected the company wouldn’t recognize Betty’s authority.
I don’t really have a question, I guess you guys can report on the worst traffic jams you’ve encountered. I’ve talked about one in California years ago, when people were out of their cars cooking burgers on grills and passing Frisbee, etc. Toney was about to snap during that one. It was horrific. What do you have on this subject, anything? Use the comments section.
And before I call it a day here, I’ll link to the Thursday episode of the podcast, right here. It’s definitely the weirdest one so far. I had several topics I wanted to discuss in it. But one awkward subject dominated. The title: If I Want To Wear Chinese Underwear, That’s My Business! And here’s the description:
This is a weird one, be forewarned! I discuss, at length, the underwear crisis I experienced about five years ago, and my ongoing struggle in the “underwear realm.” And near the end, I tell you about the Whistle Dick of the Week, who I encountered while visiting a Guitar Center with my son. I hope you enjoy it! Pass the beer nuts.
And that’ll do it for today, my friends. If you have anything on hellacious traffic jams, bring us up to date on it. And I’ll see you guys again on Monday.
Have the great weekend!
Now playing in the bunker
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It took us 3.5 hours to get from the exit on 81 to the parking lot in Montage a couple of weeks ago that was a total shitshow of traffic mismanagement. About 20 years ago a woman was killed crossing the street under a tractor trailer in Tunkhannock, we were backed up on route 6 west for hours, coming home from my husband having his wisdom teeth removed. The worst was when we moved from MA back to PA, they were doing some kind of construction on 84 and there was an accident on the bridge coming into PA. I think we sat there for 5 hours that night with 2 cars full of stuff plus a lizard, 2 cats and a dog!
Was the one a couple of weeks ago for the Breaking Ben concert? That was a freaking mess!
Yup, a total shitshow. We were back this week for Godsmack, still a disorganized mess, but not as bad!
So my friend and I decided last August to visit Savannah, GA from Harrisburg, PA. Planned the whole trip and got down there fine. While we were on the way down we realized we would be down there during the solar eclipse. The same one the was in full Ecilpse in Columbia, SC. We thought, oh that should be cool, being somewhat close to the path. No, it was not cool. 1st it rained so we didn’t see jack shit. But whatever, we weren’t going there for that reason so no biggie. We were coming home the day after the ecilpse assuming people would have gone home the day of. But to be safe we decided to take RT81 home opposed to Rt 95. Not sure what 95 was like but 81 was insane. I would imagine it was a comparable kind of hell. There was accident after accident. Our GPS rerouted us off of the highway somewhere in the middle of east bumfuk Virginia taking us down dirt roads with chickens and stray dogs running everywhere. We are pretty sure we may heard banjos playing. As soon as we finally made our way back to the highway, we hit road construction the rest of the trip. 20 min from home I daydreamed right past our exit off 81 which at that point was devasting as we just wanted to be home. Anyway our 11 hour trip turned into a 15 hour disaster trip. That was no doubt the trip from hell.
We went to SC for that eclipse (saw totality, it was great) but I agree the traffic was pretty bad! We flew into and out of Myrtle Beach the day of, and only drove maybe 40 miles but it took hours.
Greenbrier Valley Brewing is where I’m from. The wife and I visited the joint last year. We were able to sample it all. And we took lots back to NC. The Mothman was a hit. I wish that I could get my family to ship me some, but it’s slightly illegal.
Wasn’t there a traffic jam in China that went on for days?
10 days. There was an article about this recently on Fark.
Circa 1985 a friend of mine and I were on the New York Thruway, enroute to Cooperstown. I don’t remember the reason, but there was a ridiculous traffic jam. I was driving a 1980 Toyota Corolla with one of those automatic fans that just come on when needed. What a great engineering decision. Mine was broke and the car started heating up rapidly (it was early September, about 90 degrees out). I had to resort to turning on the heat to keep the engine from over heating. This resulted in my friend exiting the vehicle and walking alongside me. And he had to keep stopping to wait for me. The normal 3 hour trip ended up taking 5 hours. So of course we found a hidden college bar in Oneonta and proceeded to replenish fluids.
I used to have a 90-minute drive to work in Harrisburg from the Lower Pierogi Belt. It seemed like every day a tractor trailer would flip over or crash along a particular stretch of Route 322, which was the only way to work from my direction. During one particular tractor trailer-related jam, I was stuck for THREE HOURS. I arrived at work close to lunch time, though I probably should have just turned around and gone home after hour two!
Every day in Washington DC I think! We trael from NC to NJ once or twice a year and getting through DC is just horrible. So, you can call it a 20 year traffic jam I think!
I commute in that every day. It sucks the moose.
We had the Beltway Warrior. A little Mazda that took me north to the station where I worked overnights and south to the plant that Hubster ran. It was bitch 27 years ago.
There was an ice storm several years ago here in Raleigh-Durham in which several of my co-workers never made it home. My 15 minute drive took over 1.5 hrs while some people who had 30 minute drives were stuck for 5-6 hours. People were just abandoning their cars in the middle of the streets. If ice is predicted down here, stay home!
That was good times, ey?
yep. that was epic. took me 8 hours to go home from work, normally 25 minute drive. Kids slept at school and shit.. never seen that one beat.
Making the trip from RTP to the 27587 took some folks 9 hours. I stayed home that day…it’s nice having a portable job.
I remember a epic Orange county one that lasted for 8 or 9 hours. Plastic flamingos a wading pool and a band were seen.people were lowering buckets to the streets below to the taco trucks for food.
And tell us your Vegas plans, being a local I’m curious as to how we are going to fleece you.
I grew up on a stretch of Hwy 158 that takes all the folks traveling from the northern USA to the Outer Banks in NC & the road was 5 lane but the bridge across Currituck/Albemarle sound was only 2 lane (at the time) and EVERY weekend EVERY summer it was a nightmare. We were 12 (ish) miles from the bridge & traffic would be backed up for 20+ miles. Folks would be grilling & playing Frisbee in the front yard, knocking on the door asking to use the bathroom or phone (before cell phones were even thought of); it was ridiculous.
Needless to say even tho we were 15 miles to the beach, we never went on the weekends. We had to go on a Tuesday or Wednesday & we were lucky to find a place to even get to on the beach those days.
Watching the last shuttle launch with twenty thousand of my closest friends was a special time. In total there was a four hour delay in the launch followed by a 4 hour concretion of cars in the Florida sun. Swearing and fuming didn’t help the overall mood but it kept me somewhat sane.