What's up the road.. a head?

Sundays have never been as good to me as sundaes. And this past one ranks right up there with the worst of them.

It started out well enough; good weather, light traffic (if you discount the ever present and ubiquitous semis), and hope... lots of hope and good will. But after stopping for breakfast, and having it take an inordinate amount of time, we were making good time until we approached the town of Moriarty in New Mexico... somewhere east of Albuquerque. The name alone should have given me pause. We joked about it, made reference to Professor Moriarty (Sherlock Holmes' nemesis), and were otherwise disrespectful. And so, in due course, we found ourselves in a traffic jam. The New Mexico State Police had blocked off all west-bound traffic on I-40 and forced us and seemingly 50 or more semis off the interstate and onto "historic" Route 66.

And there we languished. For two hours, we crept slowly and haltingly forward until we finally reached the next entrance back onto I-40... a distance of maybe 8 miles. Yes, it was a joy, a true test of patience. But we had no choice, we were locked in. And as we rode in parallel with the interstate, we saw nothing that suggested a disaster sufficient to warrant abandoning the favored road.

We assume it was a grand, if belated, April Fool's Day prank.