We left L.A. Sunday morning after having breakfast with Dav's cousin Megan and her husband Costa. All was good, but we felt bad that Tesla had to be strapped to her car seat yet again for a long ride. Very quickly, however, we hit a snag. A huge snag. Interstate 5 was closed and traffic was detoured to some other route. With the traffic load of L.A., anything off of the freeway creates huge jams as you can imagine. Our hearts sank as we slowed into the traffic muck...inching towards some direction we didn't know. We thought of Tesla and how subjecting her to the normal trip of 7 hours + whatever this mess was going to be was just cruel. We were already kicking ourselves for not flying.
It was really bad. We didn't know at the time, but it was bad enough to make the NYT.
You know what though? As I was wondering whether we should turn back and try leaving the next day, Dav whipped out his Treo and was studying Google Maps. Soon I heard, "ok, now if we take xxx, then turn right, we should hit xxx, then we can go over xxx," and on and on. I assumed since all these seasoned motorists were just sitting there, there was no other way out. Dav, being the super independent brilliant husband that he is, figured out a route to get us out of hell. Seriously, I couldn't keep up with his plan, but he drove through the town roads...and when we caught up with I5 near Magic Mountain, there were like 5 other motorists! It was like we beat the whole messy crowd. I am still amazed that 1,000 others weren't following us.
So 2 things I learned: Always think on your own and try. Following is not necessarily the smart thing. Duh, but with that many cars dutifully waiting, it's hard not to assume that was just life at the moment. And the internet rocks! Our advantage of having a tiny device to access it will soon be gone as this sort of information becomes readily available to all. Sunday morning though, with our toddler, we needed that advantage.
Yay to my fantastic hubby who got us out of probably a 4+ hour yucky mess!
Recent Comments