We went to Vegas for the weekend. Having lived in Vegas and commuting back and forth to LA I have made the drive several hundred times. I have made the mistake of leaving Vegas on a Sunday afternoon and having it take 8 hours to get back, which includes the irritation of the 210. Nothing I have ever experienced even comes close to the chaos that was last nights journey.
We have made the trip enough times to know NOT to leave during the core daytime hours. From 9am - 6pm the drive is a joke. Too many people, too many accidents and not enough rest area attendants to clean up the terrible aim hung over (male) tourists develop during their stay.
So we leave around 7pm. The weather had started to cool and based on my experience traffic would not be a problem. It wasn't a holiday weekend, the Superbowl or any other occasion which would create a shitty drive home. I was so wrong.
The traffic began to slow toward the top of the first pass once you hit California. Typically if traffic is going to fucking suck it begins before the state line is even crossed. Not this time.
My wife and her girlfriend had left about 10 minutes before Aaron and myself. Aaron was still drunk, or exceptionally hung over from the night(s) before - and he was content to sit back and sleep, or rest his eyes as he put it.
Toward the top of the hill traffic slowed to 25 or 30 mph - which when you are clicking along at 85 or 90 is crawling. Because my wife was ahead of us I decided to put in a call and find out what the hell was causing the delay - and how long it would last.
Si I called, and the wife said they were in it too - traffic was crawling at this point and at times we were literally stopped for 30 to 60 seconds on the freeway. Completely fucking stopped. I had bought and consumed a Red Bull to maintain my senses when we gassed up to leave.That magic elixir of salt, caffeine, taurine and bubbles makes its' way through me life the bullet train.
Having said that it is not uncommon for me (when alone) to travel between LA and Vegas without stopping. Maybe it's a little game I play with myself? Perhaps a test in discipline? Whatever it is I have never had to pee so bad my bladder hurt.
The stop and go shit kept up for another 25 or so miles and then traffic resumed 65 mph. Not exactly breaking any laws but clicking along ok. And it remained ok until we passed the rest area. Then, it fucking stopped again.
The traffic would come to a complete stop, stay stopped for a while and then begin to creep along at maybe 5mph. I had to pee so bad my bladder hurt. My bladder has NEVER hurt and it was hurting. I kept telling myself I could make it to the next rest stop, and on we went.
Because Aaron was so wrecked from the weekend (resting his eyes) he wasn't in the talking mode. I needed to be distracted from my bladder which I thought was going to rupture so music was out of the question. I needed some sports talk radio.
I turned the radio on and began to look for a station. It was dark by this point and AM radio works much better when it isn't fighting with the sun. I kept pushing the seek button and when I would get a station to tune in, there would be a fucking commercial. I would wait for the commercial to get over to find out it was Mexican blues radio hour, or some asshole reading childrens stories, or whatever.
I kept looking, scanning the radio and Aaron hasn't said shit to me. I was fairly focused on driving and distracting myself from the pain in my groin I didn't see Aaron on his phone. Apparently he felt compelled to complain about my radio station button pushing on Facebook.
So my phone rings and it's my wife and she tells me, "Aaron is sick of you pushing the radio station buttons - it's driving him crazy". I hung up the phone with her and looked over at him resting his eyes. "What the fuck is that about" I asked him? He starts laughing and says "what"? You have to put on Facebook you are being driven crazy instead of telling me who is sitting right next to you - especially because I am the one with happy fingers looking for a fucking radio station to take my mind off my bladder which had reached the critical zone? He just laughs.
Meanwhile between the stop and go other drivers are beginning to realize the effects of too many cars in one place. Families are pulling over into the emergency lane / median / shoulder and running into the desert, having to relieve themselves. Several dudes didn't even care that they were in plain sight right next to their car letting the urine fly.
Other cars with obviously extra important people in them were racing up the median / shoulder at 40 or 50 mph (while the rest of us in the road were either crawling os completely fucking stopped) only to find them selves slamming on their brakes because some guy parked his car on the median to pee. The super, extra important folks were now forced to get back into regular traffic because they could go no further in the emergency lane. Now the fun starts.
All of the people who had been passed by these super important assholes have a decent memory, and were NOT letting the E-Lane fuckers back in. I heard screaming and yelling and what I thought was a guy get out of his car and start beating on the window of the guy in front of him - for what I don't know.
After seeing all of these people relieving themselves on the side of the road I decided to pull off at the next exit, get to the top of the ramp, get back on the downhill ramp and then pull over to pee. It was a fucking eternity til the next exit. Oh sure the sign said it was 8 miles, but when I'm averaging MAYBE 4 miles an hour that is 2 hours - unacceptable.
I am still looking for sports talk radio, for that matter any talk radio station to distract me from the immense pain coming from my bladder. Finally, a station comes in. A medical "call in and ask the doctor" show. Anything was better than nothing. Anything was better than having to drive by dudes pissing on the side of the road and coveting their relief. The only thing worse would have been if it started to rain, or so I thought.
The radio show, now back from commercial had the doctor host inviting folks to call in and discuss their medical problems with him. The first call I hear this fucker take is from the mother of a bedwetting child. I was wrong, this was worse than rain.
Finally my exit came and I sped down the shoulder at 75 mph, passing cars like they were standing still - because, they pretty much were. I get to the top of the ramp and proceed over the highway to the on ramp and what do I see? Two cops having a conference. There were some 18 wheeler trucks parked there as well, but the cops watched me pull up, get out of the car and pee.
I had shut the headlights off (courtesy thing) and have never urinated for so long, ever. It was a good 30 seconds before I noticed how hard the wind was blowing in my face. It then took about 10 more seconds before I realized the wind was causing me to piss on my feet, flip flops and all. But when you have to pee that bad, you just don't give a hot fuck what you are pissing on, so long as you are pissing.
The cops must have understood because I stood there a good two and a half minutes emptying my bladder, and they didn't spot light me or harass me or cite me. I'm pretty sure they noticed which way the wind was blowing, and it was blowing hard, and that was probably entertainment enough for them.
Once I had relieved myself (which was very close to a religious experience) I jumped back in the car with a new determination to make it home. Traffic was so slow that when I merged back into traffic I was behind the same car I was when I exited to pee.
The wife and I keep texting back and forth with her giving me updates on why the traffic is so bad. We had seen cops with their little lights on cruising up the left hand median so I am expecting at some point to see a full on, multiple fatality, body parts across the highway, jaws of life trying to separate what used to be two cars - and all the wife kept telling me was there was nothing.
How could nothing cause all of this chaos? There were people who just said "fuck it" and pulled off the freeway into the desert and slept in their cars. Little kids were running around these parked cars in the wind probably trying not to piss on themselves. Something was causing this - but the wife reported nothing back.
We figured out we were only about 5 miles behind her, which at the pace we were driving I could have run and caught up with her.
And so it went, and went, and went until we got to the Agriculture Check point.
You see, here in California where we love to waste money and resources, there is a "checkpoint" that divides the 2 lanes of freeway into 4 or 5 lanes that must stop and answer the following question - "Do you have any fruits or vegetables with you"? A simple "nope" and you are on your way.
Osama Bin Laden could have driven though this checkpoint with a banana on his dashboard and not been questioned or even stopped.
Some times the people who work there just wave you through. No hi, bye, fuck you - nothing.
What had happened was somebody called in sick, or got drunk on their lunch or something because there was only one lane officially "open". There were cars going through every lane (I think there are a total of 6) and nobody was stopping. Everyone around me was speeding up, because we knew once we were through that fucking joke of a checkpoint - we were home, or at least back to 90 on our way home.
It took me from 7pm until 3:30am to get from Henderson to Burbank, and never again will I leave Vegas on Sunday.
The hi-lights from this weekend are coming tomorrow. I have video from both nights. Stay tuned..........
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