Everything changes around these parts tomorrow. I have it in my calendar, an item titled “Everything Becomes Terrible.”
During the pandemic, one thing we were willing to move heaven and earth for was to keep our daughter in school. As it happened, the school she was enrolled in made the very early decision not to close. A few days were missed for testing and quarantine (and snow) but by and large we pulled it off. It’s a good thing, too, because if the school hadn’t opened we would have changed schools. If the state had decided private schools couldn’t open, we would have moved for the year. I say “we” pulled it off but it was mostly her school and our decision to do in-person instead of their distance learning option.
And yet this fall, starting today she’s going to be missing 2-3 days of school per week. Then in October we’re driving down to Texas and she will be distance learning until December. Granted, this is mostly our choice. Our daughter’s situation has changed and the specific reasons that in-person schooling was so important to us are not quite as critical (at least for a three month stretch). If it were, we could change schools if needed. Or I could spend up to four hours a day in the car every day taking her to and from. Which is what I will be doing for 2-3 days a week until we go to Texas.
Covid didn’t stop us, but a closed bridge will. The other kids on this side of the border are withdrawing from the school entirely for the semester.
The issue at hand is the closure of US340, which is where Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland meet. That bridge is our lifeline to schooling, healthcare, the bank, BWI airport, recreation… most of what we do and where we go whenever we leave town is across that bridge. Obviously, there is a detour. It adds about 22 miles by the official detour. An additional twenty minutes or so to Lain’s school or an additional half-hour to the regional metropolis known as Frederick. Except when you factor in traffic, and that’s where it really becomes an issue. The detour goes through the two-lane roads that driving commuters use to get into Northern Virginia and they will now be joined by car commuters to the Maryland side of the DC suburbs. And everybody on our side who has reason to go to the nearest city with amenities.
They wouldn’t be doing this without a reason and in this case the reason is falling rocks. Specifically the area under construction is at a cliffside and there have been some stability problems that they want to address.
Which… okay. I get that. This chaos is better than a giant rock falling on my head.
Probably.
Falling rocks on assorted scales are regular occurrences along a couple of the highways that start up into the mountains from Denver. If they fall in exactly the wrong places, the detour can be upwards of four hours. In other wrong places, the detour takes you across the Continental Divide on a twisty two-lane blacktop that goes up to almost 12,000 ft. During one incident, Google Maps was directing people off the Interstate onto a small road that eventually turned to dirt passable only if you had 4WD and quite high ground clearance. Personally, I once came around a sharp curve on the Interstate and found myself eye-to-eye with a boulder larger than my car that had fallen recently enough that the sheriff and state troopers weren’t there yet.
You have my sympathy.Report