Well, I had a lovely little adventure this past week (and by "lovely" I mean "bizarre and unbelievable," of course).
The wedding rehearsal was set for the night before the big day.
"No big deal, I'll just drive over there directly after work and everything will be dandy!"
I lived in that optimistic delusion for approximately forty-five miles of interstate. Suddenly, I was met with a sea of brake lights and I found that the interstate had been transformed into a parking lot.
Now, please keep in mind that I drive a 1993 Dodge Dakota that has working air conditioning approximately half of the time. The odds were not in my favor that day as the summer sun pounded down on our immobile vehicles. My truck became an oven on wheels as I sat, still in my work clothes, in the middle of the slowest seventy mile per hour zone I have ever been in. Legless turtles in molasses could have made it to Prosser, Washington before me.
At one point I turned off my truck's engine, got out and started a conversation with my fellow captives. None of us could figure out what the hold-up could be.
It is construction season in Washington, but usually that only slows things up as opposed to creating a dead stop. One guy postulated that there must have been a multi-car wreck, but no one had seen ambulances going the other way which would have indicated such a catastrophe.
Finally, after over an hour someone up ahead yelled, "I think we have movement!"
Excitedly we all rushed back to our vehicles, started our engines and waited in anticipation. The car ahead of me began to roll forward and I followed, relieved to finally be moving. Then their brake lights flashed on and we were stopped again, a whole foot and a half gained.
We inched onwards like this for nearly an hour. Miles of cars were piled up behind me as we trudged ever onwards towards our seemingly impossible destination.
Finally, after having been thoroughly roasted in my own vehicle, I crested a small hill and saw that I was near the front of the line to escape the mass of trapped cars.
I also saw what had created our two hours of traffic purgatory: A two story house had fallen off of a trailer and had landed smack in the middle of the interstate.
Yep, you read correctly, someone dropped a two-story house and created a several mile long parking lot on a seventy mile per hour stretch of road. As I drove by I half expected to see the Wicked Witch of the East's feet curl up and vanish under the house while the Wicked Witch of the West yelled, "I'll get you my pretty and your little dog Toto too!"
As I inched forward I got the opportunity to watch a tractor pull the second story off of the road.
So what lessons can be learned from my little misadventure?
1. Make sure you properly tie down any and all houses you might want to move. Particularly if you are going to be transporting them on the main artery through a state so that you don't give it a coronary or kill any unsuspecting witches.
2. You can cook an egg on the hood of my truck on a hot day. Granted, I didn't have an egg to test this with, but considering my plastic water bottle melted there, I'm guessing it could effectively fry an egg.
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