the path to hell is on i-5

yes i really thought i had driven right into hades itself on monday night when my friend and i made our return trip from northern california back to so-cal. first off, it had been storming for days and visibility was expected to be low. the rain wasn't actually so bad. it was a bit stressful and a few time i felt like we might slip off the freeway but really, it was nothing to prepare for what came. it started off innocently enough with some minor traffic due to rubbernecking. then we hit more because of an overturned big rig. the winds were vicious and i can only imagine how hard it would be to drive a big ass truck in them when i barely managed my sedan. um, them more traffic due to overturned trucks. then after an hour going about 5 miles, they closed the 5 freeway. okayyy. so we got off and took a break. they opened the freeway. we drove for 10 minutes freely and then massive traffic again. yippee they were closing the freeway AGAIN. this time it took up an hour to go three miles before being detoured off the freeway. we turned around and went back to the place were we had taken a break over an hour before, got on a different, smaller and creepier freeway (one of the streets off of it was called gun club road - not kidding) before finally connecting to the 99 in bakersfield and back to our regularly scheduled freeway. we were really getting delirious and crazy though after about 8 hours (point of reference - the whole trip usually takes 5 hours). we finally got home after 11 hours of pure hell and i had to work the next day. i don't know what i did to piss of the powers about but i hope i never do it again. some pics to show you how we felt:


strangling myself with the seat belt


just strangling


our friend the tumbleweed

i hope this never happens to any of you. off to knit before bed now. pics of the baby sweater to come soon.