Bring in Da Noise...

Soooo two weekends ago we drove to New Jersey to visit my oldest and dearest friend and also to attend her Grad School graduation picnic. That's right, NEW JERSEY. Four states away. The kicker was that I drove the first 300 miles sansDan.

The most exciting part of our journey was remarkably before we left North Carolina. While on the highway that we take for 50 miles to get to I-95 (i.e., the first tiny leg of our trip), we came upon a huge traffic jam: apparently a tractor-trailer had flipped and lodged itself across a bridged overpass, so basically no one could get through. The accident had just happened so there were only about 50 cars between us and the carnage. Now, I was sitting there in dead-locked traffic thinking, "Thank God we didn't leave 10 minutes earlier, we could have been in that accident!"

10 minutes and approximately 3,000 questions from Jack later I was thinking "OH MY GOD PLEASE CLEAR THESE BODIES AND CRUMPLED CAR PARTS AWAY FASTER!" (It's a clear demonstration of how quickly parental optimism can turn into wretched, karma-ruining desperation. IT HAPPENS TO ALL OF US.)

Then several good things happened, of which I credit this gorgeous state entirely: Several police cars (Dukes Of Hazzard, muscle-type cop cars) sped by our basically parked car on the wide, grassy shoulders...that's right, SHOULDERS. I would estimate that at least 15 amazingly-matchbox-car-like vehicles sped by either side of us blowing up grass and gravel in their wakes, causing my 4-year old son to practically pee in his seat. Only moments later a police officer actually parked next to us on the shoulder and walked to the 18-wheeler ahead of us to talk to the driver. As he was coming back to his cruiser, he spotted Jack shrieking excitedly out of his window and came over to inform me that a) no one was hurt in the accident ahead, and b) my son is extremely loud.

Once Jack recovered from his near-cop-experience, I noticed that people were actually maneuvering their cars around to drive back West on the shoulder. Now, we are on the East-bound side of a large highway. They were just driving the wrong way down the shoulder! I watched, incredulously, explaining to Jack that those people were clearly idiots.



Fast-forward 4 minutes and I am maneuvering my car around to drive backwards up the highway. Apparently a road-block had been set up behind us and we were allowed to drive the wrong way on the highway and up an ENTRANCE ramp, with the blessing of a North Carolina State Trooper, to take a rural detour route. The entire time that I am driving THE WRONG WAY down the grassy shoulder, Jack is screaming, "LOOK OUT! WE'RE THE POLICE!!!" I was half-expecting him to throw in "m*therf*ckers!" a la Samuel Jackson. Thankfully he didn't. Or else I was just too deafened by his screams to actually hear it.

Needless to say, we eventually made our way to VA, MD, DE, and NJ and had a fantastic time with our satellite families. The ride home was unfortunately (depending on how you look at it) without incident, and all of us have taken a solemn vow never to drive anywhere further than two-hours away ever again.