Overturned Tanker on I 15

     About an hour into our  6 hour drive to California....heading to Big Sur, (but we planned to take it easy,) we encountered traffic. BIG traffic. What is it? we wonder, is it construction, we query, this is ridiculous! oooops, an ambulance goes by on the shoulder, then a fire truck and the police, then the news....okay, thinks we, we are in for the long haul. And of course I had shamed Rick into not stopping for gas at the last exit and now we are looking at....what? the desert? bumper to bumper on grades, to overheat or run out of gas and have NO AIR CONDITIONING?!?!?! We remained calm.                            

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It was kind of interesting to watch (for awhile) People started to drive on the paved shoulder, then on the gravel shoulder to that shoulder, to get around cars on the paved shoulder that were being too cautious about the pylons that had been put there and THEN several people just went down off both shoulders into the actual desert and started driving off in clouds of dust! Of course, the rules of the road had been suspended and it really was chaotic out there once anarchy had taken over.  People encountered ditches or impassabilities out there in the desert, so they'd have to circle way around or head off at right angles to the road to God knows where. I guess they were locals and THEY knew where but it sure looked wild to us.

We, decided to take a pass on the whole deal and pulled off the road (legally) at the first exit, exit 1 Nevada and the last chance Casino.

Rick and I saw no potential for exiting the truck-stop/casino once we were in there and had gassed up, as it was full of big rigs waiting to get back onto the road. Since the Aluminum Rule, (courtesy of Antsy McLain and the Trailer Park Troubadors) is "Enjoy the Ride", we crawled back into the Airstream,  put on the Fantastic Fan, opened all the windows, had a beer and a nap in front of our supplementary 12 volt fan. (PS No A/C when you're not plugged into shore power but our trailer batteries stoked by the Solar Panel run the fans)

Two and half hours later we HOPEfully peered out the window to see the traffic still bumper to bumper for many miles into the desert.

Eventually, we arrived at our breakfast destination! Peggy Sue's 50's Diner, usually a couple hours outside Vegas on the California side of the State Line. No worries that it was dinner time, it was fun ad look at all the cool stuff there was on the walls and everything. 

What was it, you ask? a freakin' moron tanker truck driver rolled his rig over and caused a HazMat spill. THOUSANDS of people were inconvenienced, easily tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of dollars in gasoline wasted and public resources  ambulance, fire, towtrucks, and Hazmat response...allllllllll wasted! If I were my friend, Judy, I would have presented him with an invoice for our time once we FINALLY arrived at the scene. THEN, there should be costs for Pain and Suffering owed for all the compassion I had to summon up for the people in the northbound lane as we FINALLLLY drove past Moron's overturned disaster to see miles and miles, literally 30 and counting, no doubt, of people driving unsuspectingly towards Vegas on a Friday night, to spend at least a day in that traffic jam. People were considering ducking and diving out on the paved shoulder, and in the northbound lane there was no second shoulder and no nice flat sandy desert but I know some would have eventually 4 wheeled it into the rough terrain as well to gain some headway or just even to change the scenery. The desert. DOH!