So on Friday we leave Waterloo sometime around 8:30 after stopping at my place and the liquor store. Just before 9:00 we're making great time and then right after highway 6 south we run into a wall of traffic. We flip on 680AM at exactly 9:00 and find out there is an accident around highway 25. We then languish in our car forever. A couple hours later we finally hit some exit (312?) (the only one between 6 and 25) but foolishly decide not to take it because lots of people are exiting and up ahead the highway has only light traffic. So the pedal goes down and we zip along only to hit another wall of traffic. While sitting in traffic we occasionally listen to the radio and find out that a tractor trailer is/was on fire and all lanes are blocked. They start off recommending to take exit 312 but that ends up getting bumped back to highway 6.

So we end up sitting in traffic for a total of four hours. During that four hours we moved about 15 kms. We listened to a lot of music, chatted with some other drivers and got really frustrated! :)

While sitting there for four hours we couldn't believe that it'd take that long to clear off the highway. We also wondered why weren't police re-directing traffic at the KW 401 exits, highway 6 north and south, and exit 312? Robin speculated that trucks should have their own highways or that there should be a special truck lane with a big wall between it and the car lane.

When we finally got to highway 25 all three lanes of the 401 were diverted by pylons (there were no cops) to the one lane exit. That exit ended in a stop sign with the majority of people making a left turn. THERE WAS NO COP. All traffic on the 401 was being routed through a single lane with a stop sign and no cop. It was unbelievable.

At just around 1:30am we pull into the party and Georgetown. Fortunately it was still pumping and we finally called it a night sometime after 5am.

The next morning when I'm driving back there were a bunch of cars on the shoulder where presumably just ditched their cars and walked to wherever they were going. That's how long this traffic jam was. We heard the accident happened around 5pm. If that's the case then how come was so poorly managed? How could it take that long to clean up? How could they not have made at least a small effort of keeping people off the 401 and/or getting the people on the 401 off?
11:45:34 PM   []

And what's the deal with Monday? How many people get that off?
5:16:10 PM   []

It's a pretty sweet keyboard. Super long cable, two USB ports, and does away with that extra useless number pad on the side. I just have to get used to the height of the Trackpoint which is a few millimeters higher than that of my notebook.

I fear that I'll never be able to buy a Mac since they lack the Trackpoint.. I've also noticed that Dell is ditching it on some of their notebooks too..
2:44:29 PM   []

That's too bad. I thought it was a great idea.
2:14:45 PM   []

I'm really surprised we don't have any hotspots in the plaza (and in the SLC for that matter). If any of those business owners had any sense they'd order a $75 commercial DSL line, buy a $100 wireless router, and just plug it in. I'm sure they'd recoup that cost in increased business.
11:07:24 AM   []

When it does open it should be with a Big Chill type event otherwise there could be riots from the people stuck hopelessly in line.
9:08:58 AM   []