the road to hell is paved...& they call it I-80
Well, I'm home. Not so much by choice, but by necessity. Altho it was pouring down rain even before I woke up this morning, the trip to NJRW still started out okay. I had to stop three times in the first hour to go to the bathroom (I think from nerves, since I hadn't had anything to drink), but I hadn't suddenly remembered something critical that I'd forgotten to pack, so...okay.And then, not two hours from home--boom! Traffic on Interstate 80 slowed, slowed, stopped. Dead stop, pouring rain, a line of cars & trucks like you would not believe. Turns out there was an accident (of course!). But even tho we were stopped, we kind of thought we'd only sit there for a little bit before they cleared enough space for us to get around.
Oh, that is for to laugh. We could not have been more wrong. We sat for an hour with the engine off before we were ready to pull out our hair. I was supposed to moderate a PAN (Published Authors Network) roundtable on "writing sexy" at 3pm--a topic I was really looking forward to discussing, too!--but knew I'd never make it at that point, so I used my cell phone to call the hotel & leave a message for the PAN coordinator. (I hope they were able to find someone to fill in for me.)
By that time, other cars were starting to turn around or back up the on ramp, & we decided to do the same. Just as we were coming off, they have a fire marshal-type guy directing traffic & we asked if there was a back way to get around the exit & hop back on I-80 further down the road. He told us how & we headed off, thinking we were so very far ahead of the game &, boy, wouldn't this be a piece of cake.
Ha! This time, it took us 45mins to crawl about 4 miles. It was horrendous. Not even show tunes helped to alleviate the stress level. We were about ready to abandon the car on the side of the road & walk...& if it hadn't been raining cats & dogs, we might have. So the first chance we got, we made a U-turn & headed back the way we'd come. There was a mall right off the exit, & we figured we could kill a little time there. Again, we were thinking, "Well, let's just give them a little time & I'm sure everything will be cleared up." (Are you getting a sense of where this story is going?)
So we went to the teeny-tiny, rather pathetic little mall. Went to the bathroom--again, because I apparently have a bladder the size of an acorn--& putzed around as much as we could. Found some junky jewelry & hair accessories in a "10 for $5" bin at Claire's, not to mention a Spongebob Squarepants journal. Yay! Then we asked a guy at the pizza shop for directions to I-80 via another back road. We so thought this would do the trick; that is was such a back way, no one else would know about it & we'd be on our way in no time.
Ha-ha! Not even a mile down that road, we came to another complete stand-still & traffic was again stopped for as far as the eye could see. Yikes! Turned around again & headed back to the mall area. This time, we decided to stop for lunch & kill another hour. Surely by that time, the accident would be cleared up & I-80 would be moving again, right?
Right. Whoo-hoo, the exit was open & cars were moving (albeit slowly), so we hopped back on the interstate, ready to complete our trip. For all of about two minutes. Next thing you know, we're stopped again...I swear, in the exact same spot we got stopped the first time. And we sat...& sat...& sat...
This whole fiasco started at 10am...it was now 2:30pm. We were at our wit's end, with nowhere else to go & nothing else to do. So we turned around & headed home. I certainly didn't want to, but traffic was backed up for miles & miles. Ten miles, to be exact. Even if we'd hung around, it likely would have been another 4hrs before things were moving enough to get us away from that exit, & we still had another 3-4hrs to go before we'd reach NJ. I'm sorry, but as much as I wanted to get to the NJRW conference, I just did not have the consitution to stick around there much longer without going stark raving mad.
As it is, it took another 3hrs to get home. Remember, I said we were less than 2hrs from home when we got stopped to begin with, & the reason it took an extra hour is that we kept getting stopped on the way home, too. Oy. We ran across three more accidents, & another complete stand-still of traffic. Thankfully, this time it was right past an exit we were familiar with, so we got the hell off I-80 altogether & came home the back way.
Meanwhile, it is still raining buckets & I had to make about a dozen phone calls on the way home & once I arrived home...to the pet sitter to let her know she didn't have to come this weekend, after all; to the hotel to cancel my room reservations; to the hotel again to leave messages for three different people who needed to know I woudln't make it...
What a nightmare. I'm thankful we weren't in the accident & thankful we made it home at all, but I really am bummed that I won't make the conference. Yes, I could start out again in the morning, but I just don't have it in me. Now that I'm home, I darn well want to stay here. And God knows I can use the extra time on those revisions that are due next week. But I'm going to miss seeing & chatting with friends again, especially those I only see once a year at this conference. And I'll miss signing at the Book Fair tomorrow evening & attending the Booksellers' Luncheon Sunday afternoon.
But what can you do? After everything that went wrong today & how many times we tried to get back on track but failed, I can only think God had a reason for not wanting us on that road, or at that conference, or wanting to get us back home. Who the heck knows? I just keep thinking, "Oh, sure, I get my hair done & it's finally looking good (after the 5+ years of my bad hair spiral), & this is what happens." What a waste of a good hair day. And a good outfit. And good jewelry. And packing a darn suitcase. :-P
