playing in traffic

You might not want to try what I tried not even an hour ago: crossing I-84 during rush hour. While there were large gaps in the traffic, the cars and trucks were spaced at annoyingly even intervals, making crossing difficult.

I had made it to the Exit 73 rest area, which is located on the eastbound side of I-84. This particular rest stop features a "caboose" of sorts run by a very nice lady who serves free coffee, tea, lemonade, and ice water (you can leave a cash donation that goes to a project in Africa; after three cups of lemonade and a bottle of cold water, I left two bucks). Turns out she's an EMT as well; she offered to soak my neck rag for me, and half-jokingly told me to be careful because she didn't want to have to come down the road and rescue me.

I asked the lady how to get over to the Memaloose campsite, which was just across the freeway at that point-- so tantalizingly close, yet so far away because there was no direct way across for either pedestrians or drivers. I told her I'd seen a sign at the rest area that said that eastbound travelers needed to go three miles farther down the road, get off at Exit 76, then backtrack all the way back to the Memaloose State Park exit, which isn't a numbered exit: it's in some sort of numerical limbo between Exits 73 and 74.

Walking six extra miles seemed like a stupid thing to do, what with the campground being right across the freeway, but the lady told me she'd check with some park workers she knew to see whether any other solution was possible. She called them up and then gave me the bad news: there was no other safe alternative.

I brooded at the eastbound rest area for an hour; while sitting at a cement park bench near a sign that said "Watch out for rattlesnakes," I met a gent who was walking his tiny dog. The guy was ex-Navy; we talked a bit about our respective travels, then I asked him what he thought would be the best way to handle my situation.

"Just cross the fuckin' freeway," he said. "Time it right, then go for broke." Then he and his dog walked off while I saddled up and began the trudge out of the rest area.

It was 5:30PM. Rush hour. With traffic moving along at a steady pace, I resigned myself to the idea of walking another six miles-- over two hours' more trudging. But when I had gone about a half-mile downhill and east, I saw a break in the traffic and decided, What the hell.

So against my better judgment, I took the ex-Navy guy's advice and went for broke. I couldn't do a dash, not with my heavy pack and my unsteady right knee, but I made it to the jersey barrier in the middle of the freeway, sat on it, and ballerina'ed my legs over it well before any eastbound traffic came near me. A westbound truck blew by, but I had seen that it was in the right lane; the left lane was clear, and once the truck roared past, the right lane was, too.

It may be legal to walk on Oregonian freeways, but I can't say I'd recommend doing what I just did. It's the closest I've come to playing in traffic, both foolish and dangerous, and to be honest, I'm not keen on repeating the experience, which felt like a real-life game of Frogger.

A while back, when I had first Googled the question of the legality of walking on Oregonian freeways, I stumbled upon a news article from last year about some woman who had attempted a similar crossing and had gotten splattered for her trouble. Visions of that woman were dancing in my head when I performed my own traverse; luckily for me, I lived to tell the tale, and had found a large enough gap in traffic that I had never been in real danger.

And now I need to set up my newly-cleaned tent. Memaloose State Park is a lot larger than I thought it was; it's also quite clean and grassy, a welcome change after the dustiness of Viento. A la prochaine.


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