ROAD CONSTRUCTION STRIKES AGAIN

My brother is visiting from New York this weekend.  In the midst of the things we have to accomplish before we can have some down-time, we make plans to connect with my sister and her family in Southern Maine -- guaranteeing us down-time because the plans will be solid and in stone.

Let me just admit right here that traffic, as of late, has not been my friend.

We are sailing along on I-95 north, just past the Hampton tolls, when traffic slows to a crawl. Southbound traffic is moving, but we are going nowhere.  We debate getting off the highway, but, to be honest, there's no place to go on this stretch of the road, and we need to get off the interstate at the first exit OVER the bridge.  There is no other easy way to get over the river except by the big bridge, so we stay the course and slug along at 20 mph.

Ahead of us we see flashing lights.  Must be an accident, we figure.  After all, it's Columbus Day weekend, and all of the leaf-peepers are making trips north to see the foliage.  The odds of someone doing something stupid while driving increase exponentially during leaf-peeping season.

Nope.  It's construction.  CONSTRUCTION.  The middle of the day on the Saturday of Columbus Day weekend, and the brilliant state of New Hampshire has suddenly developed M-ass-achusetts-itis: Working road details when totally NOT appropriate.

The best part is that the construction isn't even really on our side; it's on the southbound side.  This is where we notice that traffic on the other side of the highway is now suffering worse than we are, as we have now gone from 20 mph up to about 45 mph and climbing.  Southbound isn't moving at all.  The traffic is stopped dead.

After a mile or two, we start snapping pictures.  The traffic is deadlocked for miles and miles and miles ... as far as the eye can see, and continues this way from Greenland, New Hampshire, to our exit in Eliot, Maine, and beyond.  This is a distance of more than twelve miles.  Stopped like a parking lot at the mall during the holiday shopping season, no one is moving.

There is one state police car in a turn-around between the north and south lanes, but desperate people are starting to defy the law and turn around on the police access points, as well.  By now, though, we are back up to warp speed on the northbound side.  We sail by these hapless souls knowing full-well they cannot in mere seconds safely go from zero to eighty in a mini-van full of children.  In a horrifying attempt to escape the gridlock, someone is going to die.

We don't know the full extent of the disaster.  We go home via the beach and through Newburyport, never hitting the highway again.  Those people might still be there, sitting in construction traffic, for all we know.  Either way, we escape, narrowly, with minimal inconvenience, and arriving to see the family in Maine only ten minutes late.