The weather hasn’t been great this week but the signs of summer are all around us: the neighbors are having their giant annual garage sale and yesterday I fetched Josie from school.
I haven’t had a chance to see what treasures are being offered in the drive next to my yard, I ‘ve been up to my eyebrows the last few days.
Yesterday morning, I hopped in the van and headed cross country. The drive was easy since it was overcast. It rained a tiny bit but not much, traffic was steady but fast and I could draft on vehicles going way over the speed limit so as to avoid getting nabbed like I was two years ago. I filled my cd wallet with stuff I could crank up and sing along with.
The sun came out just as I arrived at Josie’s apartment. She was still packing up her stuff so I scrubbed down her bathroom while she cleared out her bedroom. I don’t think she cleaned that bathroom once since Christmas. It was pretty gross. Two applications of scrubbing bubbles got it looking halfway decent.
By the time we started hauling bins down to the van, it had gotten warm and muggy. I was wearing a t-shirt and jeans but shorts would have been better. We packed all her stuff into the van and then went for burgers at a place on campus just around the corner from her apartment. We were a sweaty mess by then but too hungry to care if we looked like a pair of homeless women who’d just escaped from a work camp.
The drive back home took much longer than the trip over; there was just enough construction and just enough traffic trying to get out of town on a Friday evening to make the first thirty miles take an hour and fifteen minutes. Once we’d cleared the third place where three lanes were diverted into two, we were able to get going.
That’s when the car up ahead of us threw a wheel.
There was a lot of traffic, going 70mph and suddenly I saw a tire fly onto the median and bounce back into traffic. Brake lights lit up as everyone came to a halt on the interstate. The distressed car was two cars ahead of us; the front driver’s side wheel had come off, the front end of the car had smashed into the pavement but no one was hurt. The driver of the car immediately in front of us pulled off the road and went to offer aid to the passengers of the car that had thrown the wheel. We saw everyone get out and the driver began to cry when she saw the state of her car but she was fine, herself. We crept around them and I could see that her front quarter was smashed in but no other cars seemed to have been involved.
We got out of the way before oncoming traffic could pile into us. It’s never safe to stop in the middle of the highway. As Josie said, it was scary but it could have been 10,000X worse.
No one got hurt.
Unfortunately, the accident probably meant that cars a mile or two behind us would find themselves in yet another jam getting out of town.
Finally, we had clear sailing the rest of the way home.
Until we got to town, where 494 had lane closures. Its not so bad when you know where you are and you know alternate routes. We got home at a reasonable hour.
Now Josie wants me to help her unload the van.
Groan.