The Slow Go Adventure

On our way back from the Pistachio farm, we ended up stuck behind this giant earth-moving machine—just the dump bucket part of it. It was crawling along a two-lane highway but somehow managed to take up both lanes. It was moving so slowly, it felt like it was taunting us. We joked that we weren’t following it—it was following us, like it somehow knew our route and had made it its mission to stay directly in front of us.

Every time our navigation app told us to turn, it turned first, like it was reading our minds. After several turns—slow, grinding turns—we’d had enough and decided to take a shortcut. First, we got off the freeway and found a faster-looking side road… which turned out to be a dead end. So, back to the freeway we went. Tried again, and this time we ended up on what we can only describe as the road from hell. The sun was setting, and we couldn’t tell if we were driving on potholes or just weaving through ditches. We were going maybe 10 miles per hour—probably 5—because it was just too dangerous to go any faster.

Eventually, we reached a crossing over I-40, and as we looked down, there it was—that same lumbering machine, still causing a backup of traffic. Our “shortcut” hadn’t saved us time, but at least we weren’t stuck behind it anymore. We were almost at our final destination and feeling victorious.

Then, the next morning, we set off on our next leg of the journey—and wouldn’t you know it? Twenty miles up the road, there it was again, resting peacefully on the shoulder like it had been on its own little pilgrimage. The best part? We didn’t have to follow it this time.