South by southeast

I worked a double shifty yesterday. The first shift was a normal Saturday-day, doing house stuff, having lunch, walking around the lake, &c. It was sunny and nice and the day was good, although not particularly exceptional.

Then, in the evening, I moved to a whole different shift. Otis and Dingo were doing a spa-party massage gig on the east side, and I decided to act as their cabbie in Renty Red. They thought the gig was in Factoria, but it actually turned out to be in Newcastle, smack dab in the the middle of the district I used work as a patrol officer and a detective back in the day. How far back? Well, here's a picture of me on my last day on the job:

Yeah, I know, it was 1988, okay?

Anyway, since I was geographically back in old haunts, I decided to make the most of it. I toured around for a while, doing the "that didn't used to be here" thing - I had a hard time finding my way around, because not only had the landmarks changed, but in some places the actual contours of the roadways were different. The suburbanization of King County is a thing to behold, I'm telling you.

Through the magic of wireless telephony, I met up with SandyLynn, whose friendship with me pre-dates even my law enforcement days, but who lives out in that neck of the woods now. We had dinner in Maple Valley, within walking distance of the precinct house - as a matter of fact, it was at the same place we used to have our detective squad breakfast meetings. There was the requisite amount of walking down memory lane, but there was just as much of the present and future in the conversation, which felt good. In any case, it was wonderful to catch up after what we figured was about a three-year gap.

After dinner, I started heading north on SR 900. My plan was to head back to Sunset and Duvall in Renton to do some grading while waiting to pick the masseuses up. I used to take graveyard dinner breaks at a little 24-hour restaurant there; the restaurant is gone but there's a Starbucks there now. (Quelle surprise!) As I was heading up the highway, I remarked to myself how dark it was in the country; that led me to thinking about how easy it was to get into an accident on this road; that led me to think about all the times I had closed the highway for accident investigations. Well, the universe must have a perverse sense of humor, because not a mile later, I saw the lights and the flares: the highway was closed for an accident.

Knowing that alternate routes are scarce in that neck of the woods (the Cedar River runs next to the highway and doesn't have many crossings), I just sat for a while, grading papers in the car: the fire rigs were pulling out so I thought it might be just a short wait. After about 25 minutes, I gave up and wound my way around the back roads of Maple Valley. After about another 20 minutes, I reconnected with the highway on the other side of the accident and could see the backup was still there. Just like old times, except I was on the wrong side of the flares. Sheesh.*

I made my way up to the Starbucks, finished off a little more grading, and then picked the ladies up. They were tired but in good spirits: the gig had gone well. But I'll let them blog about that themselves.

*Note: while I was actually typing that paragraph, the radio announced that some truck had just lost its load at almost the exact same spot on the highway, blocking traffic with spilled cargo. Not a good traffic weekend in Maple Valley.