livlife @ MindSay

Welcome to Livlife. Where I am living my life out loud, for all to read.

Free and Easy

Tags:

driving

work

"Living life like a Sunday stroll, free and easy down the road I go."

You see, I was TRYING to channel Dierks Bentley this morning, even had him on in my car, but it really didn't work out for me .

Here's what happened:

I left for work at 11:45 am. I was running late (duh!) but that's not too bad. I was driving in via I-94 when suddenly traffic comes to an abrupt stop. What the.....?

It is Sunday morning, there shouldn't be any traffic at all, much less a traffic jam. I crept along at a snail's pace trying to figure out what was going on. I knew that the MN Twins were playing their final game at the Metrodome today (of the season...for a playoff spot, but also their final game EVER bc they built a new stadium) and that the game is sold out, but even that didn't account for gridlock more than 10 miles away from the stadium.

After a few moments of thinking, I decided--and I thought this was a brilliant plan--to scoot off on I-35E south and take the side roads through town, eventually cutting across to the university. Seemed like a grand plan, and I was psyched. I got off the interstate and started my trek. I knew exactly where I was going, but traffic was unusually thick here as well. I shrugged it off as "ah well, people must have had the same thought" and kept on a-goin'.

When I hit the main street I would use to cut over to the university, all I needed to do was turn right and it would take me practically to the school's front door. So, I get in the right lane and just before I make that turn, I see (about 2 blocks ahead) "ROAD CLOSED". What the.....?

It took me only a moment to figure out why one of the main streets (Lexington Ave. for the curious) in St. Paul would be closed. The DAMN Twin Cities marathon. So fine, Lexington is closed at Summit, but (and here is where I get really brilliant) I figure there is NO WAY they have closed the north and south halves of the city off from one another, there simply MUST be a way across. {To be clear, I was on the south half of the city and I needed to be on the north half}

It was about this time that I called home and told my mom this saga. She advised that I stop a cop and ask where the cut across was so I could get to work. This was a great plan, except that all of the cops that I saw were on the marathon route, so in order to talk to one, I would have had to find a place to park my car (impossible!) walk two blocks to the marathon and then ask for help. Not. Happening. I figure I could figure it out. Ha! Wrong.

I decided not to backtrack because the traffic was SOOOO bad going that direction (east) that I guessed it would be smarter to head west and keep checking for a place to cross over. So that's exactly what I did. I won't bore you with the details except to say this; turns out, for the marathon, they are very much willing to shut down one side of the city from the other. There is no place to cut over. Not one. Every way I went was a dead end. Road fricking closed. There were so many road closed signs that they seemed to be funneling the traffic all in one direction. East. Back the way I came.

ARGH! So I headed back toward the interstate after my fruitless search and sat in some of the worst traffic imaginable before I even get to the interstate. Seriously, at one point, the line of cars I was in was so long it stretched from one stoplight to the next. Which meant that one or maybe two cars was getting through each rotation of the light. Finally, I got on the interstate headed back toward I-94 (where I started from) when I realized one thing. There is no way to go west on 94 from where I was. The only way to do it takes you through town and I wasn't doing that because I didn't know where the damn marathon route was and didn't want to get stuck again. So I ended up crossing OVER 94 to the north side of town and creating a route through that area. It wasn't pretty and it wasn't fast, but at least I was moving and not in traffic.

Final result?

Typical mileage from home to work: 18 miles

Average drive time from home to work: 22 minutes

Today's mileage from home to work: 34 miles

Today's drive time from home to work: 90 minutes

Time work started: Noon

Time I arrived: 1:20 pm

Ability to laugh at myself after this experience......Priceless!

Would you like to see this craziness?

Exhibit A- My typical route to work, with "A" being my home and "B" being my work: