not my day

This was the day I decided to go to UC Santa Cruz for a little necessary library research. Although Santa Cruz is over a rugged little mountain range by way of a twisty highway, if one avoids commute hours (or summer weekend beach traffic), it's usually possible to get there in half an hour from here.

Not today. I hit stopped traffic at the foot of the mountains, and it took over an hour to travel the two miles to the next exit, where the cops were funneling all the traffic off. It appeared that most people were just turning around, but I know the back mountain roads, so I circled around six miles to an entrance further along, where the highway proved to be open. (If it hadn't been, I could have easily gotten to a good parallel back road from there.)

By this time, my first stop in Santa Cruz was a late lunch, which was pretty fast, and I got my library work done in about 20 minutes (maximum parking without a day permit is an hour, so I've learned to work quick there). I came home on a less direct, and even narrower and twistier, highway, which was also closed in two places, requiring more detours, and thus a trip which should have taken no more than 2.5 hours, including lunch, took 6.

I think the closures on the road back were due to floods or mudslides that have been frequent there, but I learned after I got home that the highway was closed due to a manhunt for a bank robber, who'd done the act just about the time I left home. So add "wasting my time" to the very bottom of the long catalog of his sins.