"Oh, no! A traffic jam!" I exclaimed, seeing the line of cars ahead of us. After creeping along for awhile, I saw a sign, reinforced by a patrol car, that read, "Detour at Carlile Exit." We followed the string of traffic as it snaked along interminably down a side road.
We had been making good time, and with Memphis 80 or so miles down the road, we could make our planned stop-over at Jackson, Tennessee, or even Nashville. With the added daylight hours of this, the second day of summer, that would leave only a few hours to drive tomorrow to our daughter's house in Georgia. My husband had stated he would not drive after dark on this trip, even though he had his vision corrected with new glasses recently.
"Call Jamie," my husband instructed. Our son always had access to road and driving conditions on his ipad, iphone, or something. I got him on the phone at his home in Houston and handed the phone to his father. He directed us in getting to a town about 5 miles away. But with the bumper-to-bumper traffic from the interstate, the five miles stretched into an hour.
"Go to the next town," Jamie directed, "You will be more likely to get past the blockage and get back on I-40." When a patrol car prevented our diverting to the highway, Jamie said it would be better to go on to Brinkley, 15 miles ahead.
This was still no better. We were hardly moving. 3 or 4 hours went by, and both the sun and our gas were getting lower. We had been sitting on a long bridge packed with semi-trucks, vans and cars, and I was nervous about so much weight on the bridge. Finally we came off the bridge, but a heavy growth of dense trees enclosed us on each side. It was downright claustrophobic with no end in sight.
"Let's turn around!" I pleaded. "We could backtrack, get a hotel, and maybe I-40 would be cleared by morning!" Howard edged the car tentatively to see if there was on-coming traffic. There was. Trucks, especially, had obviously been turning around and seeking an outlet. Next time he looked, the way was clear, and we nervously executed a u-turn in the middle of the road.
This was smooth sailing as we passed miles and miles of traffic in the other lane, all headed unknowingly into this morass. I felt so bad when I saw a bus full of people about to be stranded for who knew how long. "This reminds me of people falling off into Hell," my husband pronounced morbidly. I had to agree, and wanted to warn them, but we couldn't.
"I'm hungry and I need a bathroom!" I wailed. We finally came to a service station and were told there was a restaurant and a motel in the next town. At the "greasy spoon" cafe, the only one in town, the waitress told us of a nice motel just a mile down the road. We finished our fried catfish, located the indeed nice lodging, fell exhausted into bed and thanked God for watching over us. Although we didn't get a head start on the next day's driving, we arrived safely and gratefully in time for supper.
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