Stupid Beltway

So I didn't end up making it into work today. I don't even have a picture for today, that's how stupid the beltway was being. While driving to my doctor's appointment (I left at 7:30am for my 9:00am appointment, I only live 30 miles away if that), I heard on the radio and saw on the electronic billboard thing that all four lanes of traffic were shut down a mere two exits before the one I wanted. Crap. I had been warned in enough time to get on 95 North and cut through the city that way, so that's what I did. Well, turns out traffic was also pretty bad going THE OTHER WAY, the direction I was now headed. I pull out my trusty GPS and have it direct me down back roads and through Towson. I arrive with 5 minutes to spare of my 15 minute grace period that the doctor's office gives everyone, so I arrived at 9:10am. Grr. My hope had been to get there early so they could start me on the glucose early, apparently I had no such luck.

I do the "wait 20 minutes in the waiting room" thing that all doctor's offices seem to do and then they call me back. I let them know I'm also doing the glucose test and they grab me the sugar drink. I had to drink the whole thing (only 10 oz.) in 5 minutes and then go back to the phlebotomist in an hour. It wasn't awful, I was expecting a horrible, chalky drink, but this was a fruit punch flavored thing. With my history of cravings (the first trimester being maple syrup and this trimester being Slurpees or virgin daiquiris), the drink was no problem, they had even refrigerated it which made it even easier to drink. I see the doctor for all of 5 minutes, like usual (blood pressure is perfect, stomach is measuring right where it should be, and I've still only gained about 20 lbs.), and go back out to the waiting room for my hour. I had come prepared with my iPod and my knitting so the hour flew by.

Once I'm all done in the office, I head out to my car and check the traffic. I do not have a smart phone, so by "check the traffic", I mean "call someone to use traffic.com for me." First I called Dan, and he then reminded me that he was out with a friend and not near a computer. Knowing my mom was at work, I call Dan's mom (I had questions to ask her about house stuff anyway). Turns out the beltway is STILL horribly backed up, this time from new accidents and, of course, they were in the direction I needed to go, right before the exit I needed. At this point, it's almost 11am. On a good day with no traffic, it takes me at least an hour to drive between my doctor's office and work. I call in and let them know that there's no way that I'm going to make it to work in any kind of reasonable amount of time. If I had headed to work, it would have been an hour and a half--at least--to get there, which puts me at 12:30 (or later). We get out of work at 3:45 which meant that I would have been there for only a few hours, making my total travel time in the car longer than what I would have worked.

Dan was hanging out on that side of the beltway with his friend, so I met up with them to put off more driving (I don't mind being in the car for prolonged periods when I'm not the one driving or when someone else is with me) and we got some lunch. I think I ended up driving home around 3 or so and getting home only a little while before I would have gotten home from work.

I talked to our Spanish teacher much later, and she said that even when she was going home the beltway was pretty bad. So all in all, the beltway completely sucked today and never recovered from it. Or it was being nasty out of spite for some reason.