A Little More Coherent

OK - After about 9 hours of sleep, I'm feeling much better. I wasn't much good for anything last night. We left the camp at about 12:30, had a stop in a Dairy Queen in Garrison (can't pass one of those easily without stopping). Then we drove back into Minneapolis. We had NO idea what driving would be like. We tried to give the kids an estimated time of arrival, but it was a Friday afternoon after the 35W bridge collapse. We didn't know where all the cars were going. And it was fine, until we got directly into the city. Then I-94 slowed down to about 5 miles an hour. The last 3 miles took about a half hour. We finally got to the church, the kids all found their parents and I asked J to drive me home. This is where it got really interesting.

You see, I only live 6 miles from the church where we dropped the kids off. This is also close to my workplace, so I know this distance and this route well. However, those six miles include the 35W bridge that is now sitting in the Mississippi River. There is a smaller bridge right next to the 35W bridge. I've been calling it the 19th Avenue Bridge, but the news kept referring to it as the 10th Street Bridge. Whatever. I assumed that we could go home on that, since that's what I have been doing while construction has been happening on 35W.

WRONG!

The 10th Street Bridge (or 19th Ave Bridge, if you ask me) was also closed, since the area around 35W is now a "crime scene".

Can I add here that this is not a crime scene. There were no explosions. There have been reports that the bridge was badly in need of repair (and not the repair they were doing). It was hot, the foundation was cracked, and the construction crews were using jackhammers for weeks. There, I said it. We brought this on ourselves.

ANYWAY, We only found that out as we drove up to the bridge to see it closed. After cursing a little bit, we decided that we should go through the corner of downtown and take the Central Avenue bridge home. However, this is what everyone else was doing as well. Eventually, I got home. The trip took 45 minutes. In all, the trip from the camp to my house (with some stops) was a 5.5 hour ordeal.

This bridge thing is really getting to me right now. That is my normal daily commute. It's probably not going to be completed for another 5 years. My 6 mile commute is now going to take me about a half hour.