We Sat There For a Long Time.
On the same road trip where Dylan forgot his music and his license, we were flying down the highway at 70 miles per hour when, quite suddenly, we came to a complete stop.
It had gotten dark, so the road was just a river of brake lights as far as the eye could see.
We pulled into what appeared to be the world’s longest parking lot, and turned off the car. The guy in front of us got out of his car, raised the hood, fiddled with something, and then put the hood down again.
It was very cold outside. I mean, there was snow in the median strip. Traffic was backed up on the other side of the highway so that drivers could stare at the ridiculous sight of hundreds, maybe thousands, of people who were not moving anywhere.
We sat there for a long time.
We turned the car on to charge our phones, and Dylan played some music. We sang along.
We turned the car off and stood outside under our red-and-white-striped golf umbrella, gazing at the sparkling red lights.
The eighteen-wheeler next to us was a tanker truck. (I know this from when Dylan was a toddler and he was obsessed with trucks.) It had a ladder running up the side, which was very tempting for us. We both wanted to climb up, sit on top of the truck, and stare at the miles and miles of dead-stopped traffic.
Dylan took a photo of me daring myself to do it, and posted it on Instagram. I took a photo of the traffic, which didn’t do it justice, and posted it on Facebook.
Dylan ran off in his flip flops, in the snow, to find a tree that doubled as a restroom. I called Bill at home a hundred times, talking about our adventure and finding out what Bill discovered online – piece by piece – about our traffic situation. Apparently, there was a trailer tractor blocking both lanes of traffic – somehow, for some reason.
We knew we weren’t going anywhere. We sang along to a few more songs. We talked and laughed and ate snacks. We watched the people in the car in front of us, who tentatively wandered out into the cold and rain – and then got back into their car.
We laughed a lot.
Eventually – about an hour-and-a-half later – the red lights started to blink in the distance. After some struggle, I recognized that the lights were disappearing over the hill.
Traffic was flowing again.
We turned on our car, buckled our seatbelts, and waited for our turn.
And eventually, we were flying down the highway again.