Car Pooling

Well, yesterday was certainly an interesting day in the Pittsburgh area. We had some torrential downpours late in the afternoon and into the evening which turned a lot of roads into rivers really quickly.

Mrs. Smoot was on her way home from the city and found herself stopped behind three cars and a pool of rising water. And of course there was no way of getting out of it since she was already in a construction zone, surrounded by barriers.

Those of you familiar with the area probably remember the giant landslide at a WalMart construction area from a few years ago that blocked Route 65 for a week or so... that's where she was stuck. So not only did she have to worry about the water, which rose within an inch of the bottom of her door at one point, but she also had to be weary of the giant, unstable hillside beside her which could have come falling down at the slightest provocation. What a fun ride home!

This brought back memories of an entertaining trip we attempted to take to New York City in the early 90s. We got within an arms-length of the city on some God forsaken route called "Route 1 and 9" (apparently they couldn't decide between calling it Route 1 or Route 9, so they just picked both of them).

We hit a huge storm, and water was pooling at an intersection. Our car gurgled its way through the intersection after some tense moments, and being the genius I am, we somehow got in the wrong lane and ended up back at the same intersection just a couple minutes later. And during those couple minutes, the water had risen even more dramatically. We literally watched cars drive up a street and then float back down.

Mrs. Smoot handled that situation as well as most people could expect. As I was trying to navigate the heck out of there, she spent her time nervously drawing on my car seat with a pen. We all handle stress differently, I guess.

Well, thankfully last night the police finally intervened, and Mrs. Smoot was able to drive in reverse for about half a mile to a point where she was able to get turned around so she could take a different route home (it took 2 1/2 hours to make the 30 minute trip).

She was at a point where she was fully expecting that the car was going to be damaged by the water, and was very lucky to get turned around just in time. I have no idea how much ink damage her seat may have suffered, though...