We got underway about 9:30 am after getting gas. The skies were cloudy and it started showering in Lake Charles, LA, about an hour west of Lafayette. It was then light rain, pretty much off-and-on as we continued west. Just east of Beaumont, TX around 11:30 am traffic on the Interstate, I-10, came to a complete halt. The best we could tell from Internet traffic reports, there was an accident about 5 miles ahead of us. As we sat there surrounded by big trucks and other vehicles we subsequently discovered a big rig was on fire and the highway was closed until the mess could be cleaned up. The only movement was lane compression as people pulled out of line and tried to either back down the shoulder/safety lane or turn around and cut across the grass between the road and Interstate access roads and or frontage roads and go the other direction. There was no police/DOT presence and/or traffic control anywhere in sight that we saw. It was traffic chaos of the first degree with people trying to change lanes as small openings in the lanes appeared and others trying to flee the scene by going in the other direction when they thought they could. It took us 4 1/2 hours to clear the accident site, mostly sitting with the engine turned off. There were no other options other than just sitting there. (At least we had a bathroom and could eat lunch while waiting.) Another factor was a huge line of thunderstorms and heavy rain that passed through while we were waiting. With all the daily traffic on I-10, there was no telling how far the traffic was backed up behind us while all this was going on - a true traffic nightmare.
We finally passed the accident site about 4:00 pm on a frontage road adjacent to the Interstate. The highway was still closed and they were continuing to clean up the mess. As the time was now about the time we usually stop for the night, we still had over 250 more miles to go to reach the RV park in Austin where we were staying. We decided to continue on and see how far we could get before reaching our endurance limit.
We got off the Interstate just west of Beaumont and headed for Houston, skirting it on the northern-most loop around the city, then headed cross country to Austin, pretty much in occasional rain with water on the roads. We kept going and final arrived in Austin around 9:30 pm after a 12 hour travel day.
The plan for Wednesday is to relax a little, do the laundry and find some good BBQ to eat for lunch/dinner and maybe see the bats as they leave their home under the bridge at sunset. The rain has stopped but the skies are cloudy and the temperature is in the high 70s.
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