Wreck

 

  We've flown and driven from Wannaska to Massachusetts dozens of times over the past fifty years. Driving straight through takes 34 hours. I'm too old for that. When we retired we started taking back roads, giving ourselves five days for the trip.  Thanks to this method, I got to visit the home of Rutherford B. Hayes in Fremont, Ohio.

  But for our most recent trip East we were in more of a hurry and stuck to the freeways, giving ourselves three days to go 1,800 miles. I-94 from the Twin Cities to Chicago is rough and clogged with semis. We've discovered driving down to Rochester and taking I-90 east is only 20 miles longer and is a smoother, calmer road, at least until reaching Chicago which is always hectic. The most common billboard along the freeway in Chicagoland is for injury lawyers. 

  Cruising through Indiana and Ohio is fairly pleasant and all the formerly squalid travel oases have been updated. We spent the first night in Madison and the second in Jamestown, NY. We used to stay on I-90, the toll road, through New York, but another pleasant discovery has been the so-called Southern Tier from Erie, PA through Binghamton and up to Albany.

   We got back on I-90 in Albany. It's then a straight shot to Boston on the Mass Pike.  We were rolling along with just a couple of hours to go when we saw a flashing sign warning about a serious accident ahead. The GPS brought up an alternate route, but detours can be longer than waiting out the slowdown. And it was a mighty slowdown. We crept along at 5 mph for miles.

  Eventually traffic from another interstate joined our mess. After an hour of this, the flashing police lights came into view, always a sign that relief is near. There were many highway trucks and green vested men in the closed lane but no sign of the accident.  Soon we were zipping along, but could see all kinds of highway trucks and workers on the other side and westbound traffic backed up for miles like we had been.

  The next day I checked the news and discovered this accident had occurred at nine am that morning. A drug addled driver in a pickup banged into a box truck carrying frozen food. The box truck tipped onto the center guardrail scattering frozen food all over the turnpike. The guy who caused the accident was arrested. The guy in the box truck was extricated from his cab and taken to the hospital with severe injuries.  

  We got to our son Joe's place an hour later than expected. It was good not to be in the hospital or in jail.