Because I plan to be cremated and have my ashes thrown off the cliff from which I fell in Maui, I likely won’t have a grave marker. I’ve always told people that if I did have one after I die I’d like it to read “He never wore a mullet”–which for someone that lived in Green Bay during the Don Majkowski/Tony Mandarich era is quite an accomplishment. But now I think I may go with “He was never the lead car in a huge traffic backup”.
I thought about that while I was in the wagon train that is Highway 45 in Northern Wisconsin on the final day of a holiday weekend. At one point north of Antigo, I counted 23-cars ahead of me stuck behind one vehicle alternating between 52 and 57 miles per hour. I can honestly say that I have never had that many cars held up behind me in any driving situation. I’ve completed passes on the interstate and had three of four car go blowing by me doing 80+, but never two-dozen.
I wonder what the driver of that first car thought when he or she looked in the rearview mirror and saw that many cars stuck behind them. I can tell you they certainly weren’t thinking “Wow, I need to really pick up the pace here”. It was probably more like “Stupid Illinois and Milwaukee people in a big hurry to get home–I’ll teach them a lesson”. Or perhaps “The speed limit is 55–and I’m going to make damn sure that nobody will be breaking that law today”. Most likely, they never actually check their rearview mirrors to see what is going on behind them.
Of course, such a backup leads to some thrilling maneuvers from other drivers–like trying to pass all 23-cars in the backup at one time in a passing zone that is about a quarter mile long leading into a blind hill. That usually leads to a sudden veer back into the line–filling a space about six inches longer than their vehicle0–and forcing the rest of us to slam on the brakes to avoid a chain-reaction crash.
Reaching one of the few passing lanes on the highway turns into the start of the Indy 500–as cars go three-wide and floor it trying to pass each other and get to the front of the line. In one such passing zone, I was doing 72 and didn’t pass a single vehicle–as everyone stayed in the left-hand lane. Then we all hit the brakes as the road returned to one lane–and the pace went back to 52.
With the 4th of July falling on a Wednesday this year, there won’t be another holiday Northwoods road trip for me until Labor Day. So that is one less backup to plod along in for this year. But I can flat out guarantee, that I will likely be the last car in the line–and not the first.
