highway fuckery

so a drive that only took me precisely 2 hours and 5 minutes on the way there on sunday afternoon ended up taking me more than 3.5 hours on the way back late monday night...

the colossal fuck-up that is the highway situation in southern ontario was at it's worst last night with every highway paving crew in a 6 hour radius on the road! in either direction, the 401 was a creepy, crawly mess. 3 lanes condensed in 1 and then pushed onto the shoulder.

there was this stretch coming into cambridge and waterloo region that was absolutely fucking terrifying... there's really no other way to describe it. with minimal warning, all 3 lanes are forced into 1 lane in the left shoulder... no lights, only traffic cones are directing you and you're suddenly rolling along the rumble strips. it was very claustrophobic... i felt like somehow i'd been directed to the wrong side of the cones and at any minute they'd start closing me off into the centre median. and it's not like the cones were just marking the lane you we're supposed to be in - they were all over the freaking highway, twisting and turning your route all over the place.

so after getting clear of that, it should be easy sailing the rest of the way, right?

alas, that is not the way things work...
just east of the highway 6 exit, big, bright brakes lights lighting up my entire windshield! the highway has come to a halt... a halt that continued all the way through milton right to halton hills! an hour. an hour i was on my brakes, inching along bit by bit... with all the hundreds of other late evening commuters. hello warning? that would have been nice... the radio would have been no help either - they were offering reports like, "a little congestion coming through milton due to some construction." yeah, that sums it up perfectly. i actually resorted to watching movies on my ipod! not irresponsibly - it was seated in it's little ipod dock with the audio playing over the car speakers. extreme raging frustration partially subdued.

surely easy sailing would be in the cards now?
as if! coming into mississaugua, more brake lights! more paving! gleefully, that wasn't nearly as much of a back-up as the milton mess. only minimal eye twitching. but i swear, if i had come over another hill or around another corner only to be met with more brake lights, i may have just punched the gas to the floor and tried to ram my way through like a bowling ball through some very stubborn pins.

don't get me wrong, i'm glad they are finally paving that shit storm... but did they have to wait until the exact moment that i didn't want them to??