All week, I found myself waffling about whether I really wanted to go to Rainbow badly enough to actually make the trip this year. Talked about the possibility with friends, but solid plans? Hah!
This morning, the road called. My portable propane kitchen and everything else to bring had already been packed into the car. All that was left was to go. I called the friend I had been waffling with earlier to discuss joining the caravan. They had just left 15 minutes ago, and were already on the road! No problem, I could catch up.
Topped off the gas, filled my road mug with coffee, and was off to the west!
All went smoothly, until just when I thought I was about to get beyond the state of Idaho (a state with undeniably beautiful country, marred only by its reputation for utterly wretched politics and bad cops, the latter of which I have personally experienced in the past, but that's a whole other story for another time), a massive traffic jam had all the cars on I-90 stopped for miles in many directions!
After sitting at a dead stop for over 20 minutes, many cars began to turn off their engines, people getting out walking around, like what the hell is happening?!
I pulled out my phone and called the friend whose caravan I had hoped to catch up with. They were also stuck in the same mess, somewhere up the road. Nobody was moving. May as well take a few pictures and surf fb on the phone, I thought. At least cell reception was decent.
A person from another car got out and said after calling local law enforcement, they learned a very nasty multi-car pile up had happened way up the road. Many bad injuries, maybe even fatalities. Crews were working as quickly as possible to clear the road, but it would not be a small task.
More waiting. After a while, the cars ahead started up and moved a few car-lengths, then stopped again. I found myself in the middle of the bridge, looking over a beautiful lake.
Yes, the lake was lovely, but my bladder was also starting to tell me we better get going soon and find a restroom, or else! I wondered how many other people in the endless line of cars were feeling the same thing, or worse! Things better get going soon, or this could turn into a real shit show... Literally!
Finally, after what must have been a total of nearly 2 hours stopped, cars started moving again, little by little. As we got closer to the scene of the incident, traffic was still moving slowly enough for me to catch a couple more snapshots...
Past the mess, traffic in the other direction was also backed up for many miles.
I made it to a rest stop just in time for my bladder to avoid exploding.
Now I'm sitting in Spokane. My caravan friends are going farther west to meet up with other friends before proceeding back to the gathering.
So for the last couple hours, I've been hanging out in Spokane, listening to my favorite radio show via the live webstream, and taking care of a few other little bits of unfinished online business via the wifi at this silly mcdonalds (several attempts to find coffee wifi shops in spokane via google maps ended in failure, as I got there only to find drive-thrus). Had i just stuck around in zootown a few more hours, I could have heard it over the local fm airwaves and avoided the traffic mess, finished this business at the nice local coffee shop, and still been on the road right now or later this evening. But ya know, I was restless.
Also, while driving along, I contemplated my real reasons for going this year, and while traffic was stuck, I wrote the following:
Personal goal/hope for the gathering this year: repair my fractured desire / ability to simply "be" in the presence of other human beings.
Now, my laptop battery is almost drained, and I grow restless again. So onward!