So, our trip.....
It was after 2 when we left Cheyenne and headed back South. I had some directions I wrote down for getting into Ft. Collins to check out some antique stores. We needed to turn off I-25 at the Harmony Rd exit & head West. Wait, Harmony Rd? This is the exit with the Timnath Wal-Mart. Was a greater power trying to tell me something a out my trip earlier in the day? Naw, just an interesting coincidence. We headed
along Harmony to NB College Ave. It was around 3PM - on a Friday afternoon. Traffic was PACKED. By the time we finally made it to Prospect my wife made me turn around. I estimated that we were pretty close to the College, and Old Town, etc. (I found out later by looking at Google maps that we were only about a block away). She didn't care, the back-to-back traffic was not pleasing her and she just wanted to get out of there. Backtracking to I-25 we went. We got to SB I-25 and within 5 miles ran into heavy congestion. Within another 10 or so miles our die was cast and we were stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic until we got South of Castle Rock. That was a LONG & stressful drive. I wish we had just stayed in Ft. Collins, checked things out, drove South to Loveland and checked it out, had dinner, etc. and just wasted time until all of the Friday evening rush hour(s) traffic thinned.
Lessons learned?
- Don't let traffic redirect you from your original plan because it will still be an issue & you won't get the benefit of what you planned. But remain loose with the plan.
- Consider high-traffic times along entire travel route and plan to be anywhere but places where traffic will be bad. This means you might have to spend more time enjoying the trip instead of fighting it.
- Stick with the loose agenda & don't go back to the tight scripted agenda where we have a timeline with zero margin for error. It's less stressful this way.
We got home around 7PM and, thanks to the traffic, I was totally exhausted. I would have preferred to spend more time in Ft. collins checking things out and avoiding the traffic, but... This just gives us an excuse to go back there!