chicago to minneapolis

I left Chicago this morning for MSP at 1:30. My goal was to drive the route in 5 in a half to 6 hours. I figured it would be very reasonable. Well, about 15 miles south of Madison I ran into trouble. I came up on a hill and suddenly traffic came to a screeching halt. I moved about a quarter mile in 10 minutes and made my way over the hill, and around a curve. Ahead of me was some kind of multi-car pileup on the shoulder. "Great" I figured, "at least I'd make it thought the accident scene before the cops show up", right? As soon as I said that, here arrive the po-po. "Ok", I say to myself, "well the accident can't be that bad since no ambulances have arrived yet." Well, on cue here comes 1, rather 2, nope 3, nuh-uh... 4 ambulances. At this point I'm about 25 car lengths from the carnage. "Well", I think to myself again, "I hope I make it through the accident before the freeway closes. The good thing is I haven't seen Lifelink yet...." (cue choppers).... "damn." And... the freeway was now closed. In comes the one... errr, TWO Lifelink choppers and the waiting game begins. 2 hours later... and the freeway is still closed. The troopers meanwhile have cleared most of the traffic behind me and we routing all vehicles back down the freeway heading the wrong way. We got diverted to a side highway and routed back around to the north side of the chaos. In all, about a 2.5 hour delay. I ended up pulling into my driveway at 10:30... which made my quick 6 hour drive into a 9.5 hour marathon. Whew.

UPDATE:
I just checked a local website in Madison to see what the results of that accident was...

"A four vehicle accident on I-90 this afternoon left two people dead and five injured, blocking traffic in the eastbound lane for hours. Four vehicles collided on the eastbound lanes of I-90 this afternoon. Two people died, and three of the vehicles were totaled after one car apparently crossed the median, hitting oncoming traffic near the town of Christiana. Traffic was stopped for several hours past the town of Edgerton."

Crazy. Just think, I was maybe 3/4 of a mile from the accident when it happened. That means I leave 45 seconds earlier and I have a good shot of being a victim.