So here's the short of it,
Getting home the fast way or the best way...

And here's the long.

I really don't like commuting home from work coming the freeway. It is never predictable, and you can't tell from the ramp where I get on whether it's going to be fine or if it's going to come to a screeching halt. And I do mean a screeching halt.  Traffic can be moving right along and then without warning it will be inching along at less than 15 miles an hour going up the ridge cut.  Sometimes I approach the ramp to get on and the traffic I can see is just moving right along.  So I get seduced into geting up on the freeway and get right to a spot way beyond the last truck you can see in the upper right of the picture - way at the bottom of that incline, and traffic including all those big rigs that can't pick up speed very fast start inching along.  And I'm stuck one more time.

Now I'll have to admit, that even if I'm crawling along up the freeway, it's probably faster than going the way I go.  But I don't have to worry about the big trucks. I keep moving at a fairly steady rate of speed (unless I'm stopped at a traffic light). So I go the slower, but in my mind, the safer way.

Tonight the roads were wet. The freeway was backed up and I came up Main Street through the tunnel and down Brainerd Road to the house!  It was good to be home...