You Can't Escape It!

Minnesota Construction Joy...

While trying to drive home last night - a trivial 7 miles - I ran into a rather frustrating experience. I was in Richfield, attending my mom’s Open House. I left their place at 10 pm, which is much later than I had anticipated, but I assumed traffic would be no issue - it being so late on a weeknight.

Well, having multiple 'getting home' options, I decided to take 494 West to the 35W North entrance. That was closed. So I got off on Penn Ave. and whipped around to try the south-facing, northbound entrance. (Someone else driving behind me had the same idea.) But alas, that was also closed. So now that I’m heading East, I figure I can take Hwy 77 north, then 62 west, and use that entrance. I just enter onto 62, when all of a sudden, there’s rush-hour-type traffic! We’re at a dead stop. A sign up ahead says the right lane is closed, so naturally, Minnesotans being ill-equipped to merge properly, it takes a good ten minutes before I’m at the 35W North entrance... BUT IT’S CLOSED! By now it has been a half hour since I left my mom’s place, and I’m getting irritable because it’s getting late.

So I end up heading south on 35W and think that maybe the 66th Street entrance is open. I get to the exit and decide that it most likely isn’t open, since none of them are, so I turn right and head towards France Ave. I now insist that the entrance on 62 east HAS to be open... how could it not? How could they close it all down at once without putting up proper detour signs? So I make it to 62 and start heading eastbound. Whaddya know... that entrance is also closed; but in this case, construction crews had placed cones all along the freeway, preventing anyone from merging onto 35W north. I now saw why they had it all closed down... they were hauling HUGE cement beams, carried by Wide-Load semi trucks. I can’t imagine trying to drive one of those through that bottleneck area at Crosstown! One taxi-cab, a few cars ahead of me, tried to disobey the cones and jump into line with all the Wide-Load assistant vehicles. About a moment later, he realized his decision was quite stupid.

So yet again, I’m heading East, and no closer to home than I was 20 minutes prior. I make my final decision now to get on Hwy 77 north, take that up to Lake Street, and get home five minutes later. It worked, and I opened my door at 11 pm, tired, and having to use the bathroom very badly! :P