When Driving During Rush Hour Becomes Nothing

Driving to and from Bellarmine from Fremont has become almost second nature to me, since I pick up Mondays and Wednesdays right smack in the middle of rush hour. Let me rephrase that. Driving down to San Jose has become almost second nature. Aside from the 16+ mile drive to Bell, there is the twice weekly drive to the even farther Harker School (Blackford campus) for the Bay to Bay volleyball practices on the weekends. For the most part, the Bell drives aren't too bad, except, of course, on those days when drivers decide to go a little coocoo and do crazy stuff on the road. This week was one of those days.

On Monday, I ran into traffic just past the Montague Expressway exit. I decided to stay on the 880 freeway and hoped that traffic would move along, albeit super slowly. As we inched our way, I realized we weren't moving as fast as I had hoped. I was beginning to stress because I had to take one of the boys to a 5pm appointment a couple of miles from Bell.

The problem had always been the 101 interchange. I really do not know what seemed to be the problem, but every time I got to that point, traffic always flowed well, except for those that have lined up to take the exit. Once I got passed it, everyone took off and it was a smooth, fast ride to my exit, Alamaden Expressway.

Wednesday's drive was the worse of the two. I barely passed the 237 interchange when cars began to crawl on 880. From my experience over the past weeks, if traffic began at this point, then it would be packed all the way to I-don't-know-where. And I didn't want to take the risk of sitting there all day. So I inched my way to the right and got off Montague Expressway.

From there, it was hit or miss for me. I have not driven in the area for more than 7 years, since I left Applied Material. The landscape had changed, and it threw me off a bit. Although the streets remained familiar, I was lost. Literally !!! At the back of my mind, I had to get on First Street, and from there, I could find myself to Bell. After a few tries and a handful of U-turns, I was on N First Street.

I headed south on N First Street, till I hit Hedding. From there, it was a mile or so to Bell. I was smiling. It was just past 5pm.

With the boys in tow, we headed off. As soon as we exited the freeway on Alamden Expressway, traffic was almost at a standstill. It wasn't looking good. I decided to take the back roads. Again, it took me a couple of U-turns before I finally got to where I needed to be. Driving on local streets can be a pain because of all the traffic lights. I said to myself that as long as I was moving, it should be OK, rather than inching my way on freeway traffic. I guess I should have just stayed on the freeway. My back road excursion seemed much (much) longer.

Taking the back roads didn't save me much time. That evening, I had to pick-up Jake's Bay to Bay jerseys in Sunnyvale, by 7pm. At the pace we were going, it was going to be close. Very close.

Somehow, I decided to get off of 237, and traffic on the carpool lane made our trip a little quicker, only to get stuck again as soon as we merged into 880. We stayed on and got off Fremont Blvd (South). By the time we dropped off Coby, it was 6:20pm. Then, it was Nick by 6:35pm. We got back on the 880 freeway to Sunnyvale by 6:50pm. Fortunately, traffic westbound on 237 was light. We got to our destination at The Kings Academy at 7:10pm, and was able to pick up the jerseys. Imagine if we weren't able to????

Driving back home on 237, we ran in a section with some build up. I didn't see any cause of the traffic as we drove through. It's as if there is this huge magnet on the road that pulls all the cars as they slowly drove by. And there was no accident either. Too strange.

We got home almost 8pm..... and dinner was calling. What a day !!!