the driving back...

...from Greenville to Decatur was surely one of the Low Points of my life. Making the time invested seem like the longest three hours in the history of the world. And a thought provoking counterpoint to the excursion for viewing The Great Solar Eclipse, meaning: was it worth the effort?

The Rest of the Story:

I laughed heartily when the cousin who lives within the space on the map designated as the 'totality' zone warned me to 'stay away'. Totality: that area in which there would be complete eclipse viewed from a narrow band across the US in a diagonal line from Seattle,WA to Charleston SC. I thought her concerns overwrought. Discounting reports from local news sources.

Thinking: 'Really?' Reminding myself there is so much bogus information presented as factual by media sources that are not always doing the research to assure there facts are truly true. I choose to believe that thousands or millions of people would surely not be so foolish as to travel hundreds of miles in order to be within that zone, and participate in the viewing of the Total Eclipse of the Heart, or Sun. One (me?) maybe, but certainly not thousands upon thousands: enough to cause a major traffic problem.

And they didn't. At least not prior to the disappearing. But afterward is an entirely different story. It was so awful, I am still not sure it happened. I left Greenville soon after the show was over. Actually had a such a good view on the local news that I could have stayed in and watched it all on the tube. Except then I would not be able to say: "I saw it." When what you really saw, standing out there, leaning back, staring overhead in your dark glasses, looking like a simpleton was mostly: nothing.

I planned to get on the road heading back to Decatur by 3:30, hoping that would allow me to avoid most the worst of the traffic leaving the city returning to the suburbs. I noticed as I got in my car to start out that it was 3:37 pm. I had excellent speed and smooth travels for about ten miles. Then came to a complete halt. I never did figure out why traffic slowed to a crawl for one hundred miles. But that is the cold hard truth.  I inched along for hours and hours at times driving three mph on the interstate. For hours. And hours.

I looked at my GPS thinking maybe I could get it to divert me, take me on a detour that would circumvent the worst of the stalled/crawling vehicles. Still unsure why we were all going so slow. Assuming there must be a wreck someplace down the highway towards Atlanta. I did get off the four lane for a while, but even that was clogged, slowmoving, barelyinchingalong.

It is about 120 miles, taking not much over two hours, if you do not stop several times as I am prone to do. Which means it took me about seven hours to complete what would normally be a two hour drive. I got to Decatur at 10:37 pm. Averaging about 19 miles per hour for seven hours. Un-believe-able! Frustrating, aggravating, irirtating, baffling, and exhausting.

I would have to say that it was worth going, after the first three hours, then went rapidly downhill from there.  If I had known what the return trip to Atlanta would entail, I think I would have invited myself to spend the night in SC. I did not even have solar eclipse on my bucket list to be able to mark it off!