Lyssa and I got up early (which is to say, we slept in for a change) last Tuesday to get our stuff packed and leave for our first vacation in a couple of years. Jason met us at our apartment and helped us load everything into the back of his SUV (we packed kind of heavy for a change, though most of it consisted of books that we were hoping to catch up on). After a quick lunch at our local deli and a sidetrip to pick up some essentials (like shampoo and asthma medication) we then hit the highway …

Yesterday afternoon Lyssa and I struck out northward for New England to visit Jean, an old friend just over the Connecticut border. We loaded up the newly repaired TARDIS and headed for the Beltway around 1500 EST5EDT yesterday afternoon.

Now, seeing as how it was the day before Memorial Day weekend began, we should have realised how bad the traffic on the Beltway was going to be, but we'd figured that if we left early we'd beat the rush and not experience any undue delays.

This was not the case. The Beltway was a parking lot of people leaving work …