Enjoy the Ride

I was on the interstate before I noticed the slow moving traffic. I left work a few minutes early because it's City Stages weekend in Birmingham. City Stages is a huge music venue held in the city. They block off about ten square blocks downtown, throw up a wire fence, put up some gates, build five or six huge stages and open the gates.
People come from all over the south and for three days the population of the city almost doubles.
So, as I crawled along the interstate, I had a foreboding feeling because I was a good fifteen miles from downtown and if traffic was already moving at a glacial pace, I wouldn't make it home until morning.
I started running alternate routes through my head, but each time I approached an exit where I could execute my get-a-way strategy, it was clogged and traffic was at a standstill. I decided to turn the AC off, roll down the windows and make the best of it.
As it turns out, that was the best strategy because everyone was getting nowhere fast. The way I saw it, I could arrive home happy or I could arrive home mad - either way, I would arrive at exactly the same time so I opted for happy.
I did managed to exit off the interstate in Homewood and take a little known street out of town. Turns out, there was a lot more people who knew about it than I thought, but traffic was moving so we crept out and I got home two hours later than normal, but I was whistling when I arrived instead of spewing steam out my ears.