Home Again, Home Again!

We are back in Toledo!  I have lots of stuff to post and hopefully will get things up in the next few days.  I wanted to start with our afternoon and evening yesterday.  Our 9 hour drive yesterday turned into a 13 hour drive.  Here is the news story as to why.

http://www.wsbt.com/news/local/Toll-Road-backed-up-after-crash-103825124.html

The news got a few things wrong from where we were and according to people we talked to working there.  We were in stop and go traffic 30 miles behind the accident and there was a lot more cars behind us.  The news says the traffic was only backed up for 10 miles.  Also, Jon talked to a worker, he said the driver of the semi which ran into the other one died.  The news says he had minor injuries and is doing fine.  Here is our story.

We were on I-80 about 10 miles from Exit 49 in Indiana (2 hours from home) when traffic started to slow down.  We were stopped quite a bit and barely moving when we were moving.  It took about 2 hours to get to the exit.  There were police cars blocking the interstate and everyone had to get off at the exit.  We were about to exit, where the police cars started to let cars through.  We stayed on I-80 thinking it was such a blessing! 

We were about 2 miles from the first South Bend Exit (Exit 72) when traffic started slowing down again, it was still moving, but not very fast.  Jon called his brother to have him look up what was going on.  We were pretty sure it was an accident, but not sure how much longer until we would get there.  We found out that a semi had broken down and was going to exit at Exit 72.  Another semi for some reason did not slow down or move over to pass and ran into the slow moving semi.  There was a fuel leak too.  Jon's brother said that they had closed the interstate, but one lane was open now.  He also told us that it had taken 2 hours for the semi driver to be cut out of the cab of his truck.

We got to where we could see the arrows making the road one lane, when everything stopped.  We could see quite a ways up the road, so we would know when things started moving again, and we were getting low on gas at this point, so we put the car in park and turned it off.  I was able to change James and we walked around for a little while.  We also got to see a really nice Sunset.  Here are some pictures.  How often do you get to take pictures while standing on the interstate?

There was a motor home next to us.  The guy came out and offered his bathrooms to all those stopped around us.  There were cars backed up as far was we could see.  If I had to guess I would say that traffic was backed up to the Illinois border.  Yes, I would not have been surprised if traffic was backed up 70 miles, maybe more.  It was 4 hours that things were stopped. 

Jon went up and talked to the worker sitting in the truck with the arrow on it.  We learned what we had already heard from Jon's brother, but he did have more information.  One lane had been open, but a truck was trying to pull the two semis apart and it was too heavy for the truck.  So that truck had rolled into the ditch on the side of the road.  The road had to be closed again so they could get that truck back up on the road.  The worker also told Jon that the semi driver had died in the accident.

We finally started moving.  The semis were still there when we drove by.  It was really bad!  We were really glad to be moving again.  We stopped at the next plaza for dinner and gas.  It was after 9:00.  Needless to say, we are really glad to finally be home!