Today we went to get Wakana's car repaired and go to the movies. We started off innocently enough but found the road blocked when we got to Hagatna. There was a truck on its side at the next intersection. Thus began one frustrating and harrowing day. We are quite exhausted.

Marine Drive runs almost two thirds the length of the island, from the Air Force base to the Navy base. It varies from four lanes to six lanes in width. In northern Hagatna there are two intersections with roads that run in an easterly direction. That is the point at which the cliffs start as you go north so there are very few roads that run into the center of the island. Those intersections are key to movement here. And the accident blocked one of them.

Wakana and I were in two cars because we were going to drop her car at the repair shop. We got separated in the chaos at the first intersection and lost each other running east towards the Agana Sopping Center. She turned at the Bank Of Guam building but I had to go with the flow of the traffic all the way up to the shopping center. I cut through the parking lot there and managed to get over to the main drag up to Maite. As I came out on to the road I met with Wakana again. We turned for the "shortcut" through Tijan past the airport and stopped dead in bumper to bumper traffic.

Now, some of you may experience slow traffic in your daily lives and think little of it but in Guam it is rare. To be caught in a long line of cars barely moving is unusual enough that you just have to sit back and take the experience as it comes. After a few minutes it gets old and you want to get moving. Nothing was moving today on Guam.

Let's just say it took us an hour and a half to make a trip that should have only taken half an hour. We finally delivered her car and went over the the GPO for lunch and a movie. We saw Harry Potter, got out at about 5:30 and headed home... And the damn intersection was STILL closed.

We ended up going further north before we could cut east and south enough to get around that intersection. I used up half a tank of gas just sitting in traffic today. I don't want to go anywhere tomorrow!