Yet Another Reason...

why I miss living in the middle of nowhere in West Texas. I know previously I have expressed why I LOVE living in the Panhandle/West Texas, but Sunday night I was especially missing my wide open spaces.

Emily & I went shopping in St. Louis on Sunday afternoon. We started at the Galleria, but they didn't really have what we were looking for & Kyle had just got to the AmeriStar and was busy playing poker, so we decided to go to the St. Louis Mills Mall. So after we got some quick shopping done, Kyle came over and met us and we ate supper at Chevy's. About 7:45 we finished and started our seperate ways. Now normally I can make it from that mall to Columbia in about an hour and a half, give or take 5 or 10 minutes (it's all interstate from where I was to Columbia...good ol' I-70). Well I noticed traffic was going a little slower than normal, but didn't really think that much about it, we were moving along at a pretty good pace and it had been snow flurrying all day so I thought well people are just being cautious.

Then I hit Warrenton, which is about an hour from Columbia for those of you who aren't familiar with Missouri. Right outside of Warrenton I went from 65 mph to less than 10 mph rather quickly. And we creeped and creeped and creeped along. At one point I called my mom to express my frustrations and looked at the mile marker I was at. (Missouri has mile markers every .2 of a mile, so you always know where you are) 10 and half minutes into our conversation I looked at the mile marker I had gotten to and I had only gone 1.6 miles. Needless to say I wasn't happy and just wanted to get home. At one point I came around a curve on top of a hill and all I could see down the hill and up the next hill were red tail lights. So since I was sitting still, I pulled out my camera and tried to get a good picture. This was the best thing I could come up with.

Yes those are solid tail lights, in both lanes, for as far as you can see. Two and a half hours later I finally got home to Columbia. I kept thinking I would come upon a wreck or something that was causing the traffic jam but never did. Just a bunch of people trying to get from one point on the east side of the state to somewhere on the west side of the state. Last year I traveled from Illinois to Columbia on the same day and didn't have such a problem.

Now, never in my life have I see such a traffic jam on I-27 in my life where there is no apparent reason for the roads being packed. We might have sat there for a wreck, field or cotton modules on fire so you can't see to drive, or even dirt storms, but never in my life have I seen I-27 stopped because there is so much traffic....it's just never going to happen. I guess one plus to the whole ordeal was I got some dang good gas mileage on my way home, because for most for most of the trip I would say I averaged 40 mph (and that is definitely generous for the amount of time I sat or went less than 20 mph).