Prologue to the Zoo

Posted on August 23, 2002 in Zoos

As the Empress mentioned, we went down to the San Diego Zoo to meet with an old college chum of hers who now has two teenaged daughters and a husband. I’ve become accustomed in making my driving plans to expect at least one spot along Interstate 5 where the travel will slow down for no explicable reason and then, after a mile or two, start rolling again. So when we came to a dead stop next to the train maintenance station which is located about two miles north of Oceanside, I looked to the next rise, leaned back, and waited for the flow to begin again.

Fifteen minutes later, we reached that low crest. Miles of cars, the trucks all lined up like a wall in the second lane from the right, stretched onwards to the next rise. My plan had been foiled by the unexpected constipation of the freeway. I told Lynn to call Jody’s cel phone and to inform her that we’d run into major traffic and weren’t going to make it to the zoo by ten thirty as we promised.

It was just me and Lynn, alone with our minds. The CD player broke a couple of weeks ago and KUSC was playing a recording of some opera arias sung in Italian. I couldn’t follow along to that and there wasn’t much to do in the way of driving except watch for gaps in another lane which looked like it was moving faster. I wondered aloud what was causing this bottleneck. Lynn said “I don’t know.” “There better be something GOOD, causing this,” I raved. I loved the tenor whining edge I could manage when I broke out into a rant. It sounded good. “There better be an accident.” Lynn just shook her head.

Five minutes later, a time during which I compared the free flowing globs of traffic coming at us with the steady corduroy stripe on our side of the highway, I said “There better be a twenty car pile up. I hate it when people stop to gawk at some guy changing his tire.” Lynn squirmed slightly. I chuckled to myself. “Remember the points game you never liked to play?” I asked her. “The points game?” “Yes, you know the one where you point to a pedestrian and ask ‘How many points would I get if I ran that one over?'” She shook her head.

I gripped the wheel with both hands, hot for an opportunity to end my constant switching between first and second gear. The truck crept a few hundred yards forward. I got mad when a bus that had been half a mile behind passed us, so I shifted to a faster lane. “This better be GOOD,” I repeated. “I expect AT LEAST a jetliner crash.” “My honey,” the Empress said.

We rolled over another hillock. This gave me a vantage point from which I could look over the pink and white oleanders Caltrans had planted in the center divider. “I think we’re getting near the sticking point,” I said. “The traffic on the other side is coming forward in clumps. That means they are slowing for something.” I pointed to a loose mob coming over the rim of the next mesa. “We should see it soon.”

We dropped low into the gully. I could no longer see the other lane through the oleanders. Traffic in our lane scurried and stalled. As we summitted, I thought I detected a line of blinking amber lights on the right, just past the next ridge. “We’re coming up to it, Lynn,” I said. “I see a signal light.” She peered forward, saying nothing. I checked the clock. We’d just hit 10:30 am.

The lights disappeared. I despaired, imagining the accident to be next to one of the lagoons south of Carlsbad, another seven to ten miles away. It seemed that my driving decisions no longer mattered. Traffic dictated the terms and shoved us forward like pawns on a four column wide chessboard. Our pickup rolled down to the bottom of the trough, then climbed to a bridge that had American flags pasted to it. “They’d better not be stopping to look at those flags,”I grumbled. “I mean they’ve seen those plenty of times!” Lynn just giggled.

We advanced just shy of the lip and then we saw it all: three orange Cal Trans trucks, two highway patrolmen pulled up in a ragged line, a couple of cars parked next to the road that I took to be eyewitnesses, and the disaster itself. A gigantic truck had taken a sudden, sharp right turn into the unnatural woodland next to the freeway, then plowed nearly its full length into the back of a mobil home park. A ball-headed Marine squatted on the roof of a brown RV, just inside the wall, watching the show. “Oh my word!” I cried. Lynn hid her eyes. “There’s no blood,” I comforted her. “Nothing’s overturned.” “I hope he was wearing seat belts,” she said. “My guess is that he fell asleep at the wheel or his brakes gave out and he did that to keep from hurting someone,” I replied. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he is all right.”

“Call Jody,” I instructed her. “Tell her that we’ve passed the accident and that we should be there in about twenty to twenty five minutes now.” I pressed the clutch and joyfully zigzapped the stick into fifth gear. “Wow!” I cried. “Was it good enough to back things up like that?” Lynn asked, smiling.

“It sure was! What a show that must have been!” Yes, it had all the thrill of danger and no lives lost. More like a video game and nothing like a war.