I left my home around 5:30am this morning, as usual. My commute's always quiet with only a few cars here and there. This is also the only time of the day I brave an expressway that's very busy after 7am.

This morning all of that changed. Cars, SUV's and big rigs seemed to be at every merge lane and every exit/entrance of my route. It has not been that busy at that time of the day all year. Not that I'm not used to traffic but my morning ride is my relaxation time when I can just go without thinking too much about the vehicles around me.

I blame this morning's weirdness at dcuper1 and his thread "Who here is afraid of getting killed while commuting?" Why the heck do you want to talk about getting killed anyway? I haven't really thought about it much while commuting until now. Of course, when you start thinking about it, that's when crap around you always happen.

Semi rant over.

I occasionally have a morning like that - on the MUP the normally-absent zombie dog walkers are out in force, the crazy college students (or maybe they're crazy college professors) are all out trying to run me down with their cars as I cross the UNM campus, and there's a ton of traffic on the usually-deserted road that takes me from campus the remaining couple of miles to work. Maybe it's the moon, or maybe it's just random coincidence - either way, it's usually not a long-lasting thing.

I commute along a major highway, and leave early to beat rush hour traffic. It is normally relaxing, except for an area in front of a major office park. This has a constant stream of cars turning into it during rush hour, so when I started commuting I figured there would be fewer cars earlier in the morning. Wrong. There seems to be even MORE cars, and the drivers seem even MORE ticked off and intolerable. I guess they are just angry that they are going through all of the trouble of waking up early so they don't have to be extra angry while sitting in traffic.

I got those weird morning too. Part of the road I ride on in the morning has a freeway on ramp to 880. Usually at 4:30 am, I will see only one or two truck merging into the freeway only lane at the overpass. They give me space and not cut me off. One morning as I turn into that road at the intersection, I saw a convoy of 18 wheel semi waiting at their red light, all ready to go as soon as their light turns green. First thought was, where the heck did they all come from? Second thought: Do I want to put up with them when they catches up to me at the ramp?

I chose the sidewalk that morning Only thing I can figured out is that they must have staged down in the other outlet parking lot down the street and it just so happens they all left at the same time and all were trying to get to 880 interstate before the traffic on the freeway start.