Thursday, September 28, 2023
Tom Hanks was telling us the story, reading his book that had us gripped. I was completely relaxed, sailing along without paying any attention to the outside world.
We’d left Newport for Boston airport waaaaay early after enjoying more shopping for glass flowers and then hiking around Fort Adams State Park. Keith took an exit, which he’d done a dozen times today switching from one highway to the next.
We stopped at a stop sign. Oh! We were getting to the gas station. He’d checked the box for gas stations along the way and chosen one close to the airport for our final fill up.
We took a right and were instructed to take the fourth exit of a rotary. Tom stopped reading, sensitive to the traffic. A roundabout is called a rotary here. Ah. We were just really taking a left without taking a left. It was going fine – two lanes from all directions – until we got behind the guy sort of floating between lanes, going 7 miles/hour. Um…
We made it. Got in the right lane. Over the highway. Gas station just on the other side. Oh. Yellow tape around the pumps – very closed.
Take a right to go around the block. Pass a one way, another one way, third one way, turn left. Get a signal to go left the next time. Head to the next signal.
Gridlock on a 5 street intersection.
I just stared at the lights hanging in the intersection trying to figure of which lights were for whom. I looked at the 4 lanes sorta across from us – two turn, two straight. I looked at the two different streets toward the right. The one street to the left was full. Four lanes full and spilling into the intersection.
“Are you afraid?” I whispered.
“Of what?”
“Everything! Everything around you.”
“No.”
Phew. I was on high alert, nerves jangling. We got the light and Keith went out into the intersection, even with nowhere to go.
“Aaaahhhhhh.” That was not him making sounds.
Cars from an incoming lane went behind us.
“See? That lane is turning right.”
They indeed were turning right, without any of them using their blinkers. If they hadn’t turned, they would have driven straight into the side of us.
The light ahead turned green. The wave movement of cars trickled back to us allowing us to get out of the intersection but no further. Lights turned, we crept. We made it a block, to a signal, and heard a siren. An ambulance appeared on the side street and pulled behind the single car in the left turn lane. The car didn’t move. The ambulance honked. Then hoooooonked. Their honk is siren-y. The driver suddenly realized they were behind her and floored it across the intersection, even though her light was red. She looked FREAKED out. I definitely would have been freaked out
We missed that entire green light to the ambulance. Next one, we were through! We needed to sneak one more block to the gas station across the street from the closed one.
Creep. Sneak. Creep.
“Can you tell how I get into the gas station?”
I leaned against the window. No. I couldn’t see. Keith nosed the car a little right and a car ZOOMED by on our right.
Oh! That was a surprise. Cars had been parked along there…now it was a lane. ZOOM. Car two.
“Go to the right. We can get up there and see.”
We went. Still couldn’t see. Green light. In for gas! Out from gas.
“Where do I go now?” That was a very reasonable question from the driver.
OHMYGOD I needed to put airport in for the map lady. We were going over the highway – actually moving – while I needed to do something. We got to the rotary. It was very full.
Creep. Creep. The two lanes were now four. Or three. But mostly four. We were not moving. A couple cars on the outer edge got moving and out. A car from out squealed IN, going perpendicular to the car ahead of us
“Gasp. Squeak. Swear.” Again not Keith .
Things did not rotate much in the rotary. All the drivers were super good about letting other cars in and proceeding cautiously, except for three who suddenly burst into opens and created their own paths.
“OHMYGOD! What are they thinking?”
Not thinking, for sure. (All pickup trucks, btw)
Four/three lanes (well, five at one point, counting the lady in the blue Honda, but that was just for a bit) finally made it out of the circle and we were back on the highway. It took 50 minutes to go to the gas station on the corner of the exit.
Four miles took twenty minutes. Take exit 137. Okay. We were moving on that new road. Stay to the left at the fork. Oh, look, a tunnel! A lane joining us on each side, all sliding into the tunnel. Then, right lane ends.
That means the new right lane coming in, not our right lane, right? For sure.
That lane of cars zippered into ours as well as Minnesotans. We continued going (going!) about 40mph. The arrows on the ground clued us in that our right lane ended, too. Two right lanes end! Okay! Zipper in as the tunnel is coming in closer on the right.
ZOOM! A pickup went by and zipped in two cars ahead.
“That was cutting it close. Wow!”
ZOOOOM.
A semi barreled past next to us, pushing for a space.
“Ohmygod!!!!! Whaaaaat?! Aaaahhhhh,” I squeezed toward the center console as if that would keep me safe as the truck sheared off the side of our car.
We did NOT die, or get shaved in half at that time. We did both have adrenaline bursts.
We tunneled along, then took a right toward the Rental Returns.
Stop.
Obviously.
Creep. Sneak. Creep. Through an intersection.
“It says Car Return left lane only. Right lane TWT gas station. What’s TWT? Do we need TWT?”
Two way traffic? Maybe? Who knows.
We weren’t quite to the two lanes. Then we drove past a hundred stopped cars in the right lane as it was our turn to GO, toward rental returns. As we passed the road that intersected to the right (with the gas station, I assume), there were two lanes of stopped cars coming from the other direction. Several hundred cars just stopped there, waiting to get OUT of the car rental area. They were stopped all the way into the ramp.
I breathed a huge sigh of relief that we’d come in and left car rental at 11pm last week. It was planned that way – I just didn’t know it had been SUCH a good plan.
When we left Newport it said an hour 37 minutes to the airport. It took us an hour 25 minutes to get from the gas station exit to parking the car. I am so glad we left reaaaalllly early. That made it completely stress-free (ish).
MY heart is going pitty-pat-pat-pat….
When I think of traffic, I think of stopped or slow cars in rows. I never considered the craziness of that roundabout. Keith was a total rock star. I’d still be in Massachusetts.