Yesterday, Ted and I drove to the Lake of the Ozarks for my birthday dinner at Bentley’s. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day and it looks like spring might actually come to Missouri. The grass was green, the budding leaves gave the trees a green tinge, and the redbuds were in full bloom all along the 150-mile route.
Unfortunately, our drive from home to the restaurant was filled with highway adventures. Due to a tractor-trailer fire a few days ago, the service road along I-70 was closed, so eastbound access to I-70 was not possible at “our” interchange. It didn’t affect us when we left westbound, and we knew about it in advance, so we took a different exit to get home. It was early rush hour when we left home, but we knew that too, and it was no big deal. Then we got to a mile-long back-up on I-70 for an accident on the other side!!! Our back-up was just the looky-loos watching the accident; it was much longer on the other side because some of the eastbound lanes were closed. After that, there were some early season construction zones that slowed us down.
The big event of the day, however, was the reconstruction of the exit ramp at Kingdom City where we turn to go south to the Lake. The westbound exit was closed and detoured. It took us more than 20 minutes to make our exit and turn so we could continue on our way. After creeping our way along the detour route, we finally reached US-54 and, in spite of the installation of a traffic light, it was still difficult to make a left turn at the corner to join the southbound traffic.
The traffic coming from the north was backed up. . .
. . . and the traffic back-up continued on the south side of the intersection. The actual exit ramp (when it’s open) joins I-70 and US-54 way down at the McDonald’s sign on the left.
We called the restaurant to re-schedule our reservation, and had no more traffic problems. Some other drivers did, though. The State Patrol was out in full force (end of the month?) and we saw four cars stopped, presumably for speeding.
Our waiter delivered our glasses of wine quickly so we could immediately begin relaxing, and our dinner was wonderful. It was definitely worth the drive–even with the traffic hassles.
Just looking at the Lake of the Ozarks and seeing trees in bloom was a treat.
Our drive home was uneventful and I think my 2018 birthday season is now at an end. It was a good seven-week run.