How I Spent My Weekend: The Eight-Hour Journey
The drive from Austin to Dallas is approximately 200 miles. It usually takes 3 - 3.5 hours, depending on traffic and Buc-ees stops. I make the drive pretty frequently. On Friday, after a day of heavy rain and flooding in Central Texas, I saw a lull in the storm patterns and decided to go ahead and leave late in the afternoon. I did this against the advice of my mother, who wanted me to wait until Saturday morning. Here’s how it went.
Hour 1: Great idea! The roads are a little wet, but I’m avoiding traffic by taking the toll road out of town. I’m going to be there by mid-evening. All is well.
Hour 2: Approach south Temple, getting very close to my gas/drink stop at Buc-ees. Hit some traffic and slow down. See a sign that says: “Temple, 6 miles, 36 minutes.” Think that’s a really excessive estimate of rush hour traffic, ignore it, and carry on.
Hour 3: Still sitting on I-35 in Temple, barely moving. This is absurd, I think. My map app said traffic was supposed to be clear, but there’s no end in sight. Map an alternate route on Waze. After taking two suggested turns on to private/dead-end roads, start navigating through scary, flooded, undivided two-lane highways in the backwoods of Temple. Have an emotional breakdown. Get back to the highway only a few miles north of where I got off, only to find traffic just as awful as before.
Hour 4: Regain some sanity after finally making it to Bucees, a mere few miles away. Get much-needed gas and caffeine, and recharge for what looks like a disastrous next few miles. Check Twitter, the only reliable source in a day when all traffic/map apps have failed me, and find out the source of the congestion is flooding in Troy, TX, just north of Temple. The highway is closed in both directions and they’re re-routing traffic to the one-lane access road. Get back on the highway and start crawling along.
Hours 5: Continue to sit, literally in park, on I-35. Alternate between long periods of not moving and short spurts of moving a few hundred feet. It’s the slowest-moving, most ridiculous back-up I’ve ever seen. The guy next to me is reading his Kindle. I am getting hungry sitting behind a very large photo on the back of a Papa John’s truck in front of me. Several of the other 18-wheelers are pulled over on the side of the road, drivers in the back of the cab sleeping. I am jealous of them.
Hour 6: Finally get to the source of the problem. See one guy in a reflective vest with a flashlight directing traffic off the highway and onto the access road, through the four-way stop in Troy. Rejoice when I finally make it past and back onto the clear, nearly-empty highway.
Hours 7-8: Drive the rest of the way to Dallas without event, except for rain almost the entire time. Pass people sitting on the other side of the highway facing the same horrific back-up I was just in, and feel incredibly sympathetic. Finally arrive in Dallas, much to my own relief and that of my very worried mother.
Rest of the weekend: Complain about this and claim I am never driving to Dallas again. Annoy people around me. Begin to recover. Make it home in 3.5 hours on Sunday, with clear skies and mostly clear roads. Vow to stop complaining about it after posting a detailed rant on Tumblr.