One Mystery Solved! Sort Of!

I love it when weird things happen to me. Take today, for example.

Because of some freeway construction I often decide to take an alternate route home rather than do the "stop-and-don't-go-far" thing due to traffic backing up.  Specifically, on my way home to University Place, I get off I-5 southbound at another exit rather than the SR-16 westbound exit undergoing some serious and long overdue re-configuring.  I like using S. 38th as it offers several different streets to chose from, and which one I choose on any particular day is pretty much a random guess based on which one I perceive to have the lightest volume of traffic.  Since it's all pretty much guess work and totally unscientific, I often wondered which way was actually the fastest. I mean my GPS can tell me which is shortest, but that's not always the fastest.  But if I learned one thing in my year long Relativity course in college (yes, I'm that geeky), it was that "fast" is a relative term, and in this case, one with just too many variables (time of day, day of the week, weather, etc.), to account for, so I never actually tried doing any sort of actual measurements.

Well, today was different and I'm closer to knowing the answer. Deciding to take the same alternate exit, S. 38th, a Honda with Arizona plates happened to pull right in front of me and was still in front of me as we approached the red light at the end of the exit ramp.  That's were we parted ways with me taking the empty right turn only lane to go to Costco to get some gas, while the Arizona Honda stayed in the exit lane to continue west down S.38th.

Now these times are estimates only, but I figure it only took me a minute or so to get to Costco where I had to wait perhaps 2-3 minutes before it was my turn to use the pump, and another 3-4 minutes to actually fill up my car, pay and leave via the back exit to Cedar to eventually turn onto Center street. I estimate the entire side trip took no longer than 7-8 minutes tops.

Then as I approached the red light at Union and Center, low and behold who should happen to be already there stopped right in front of me? The Arizona Honda! I recognized the license plate immediately. It was like we planned it, both agreeing to conduct the very experiment I often wondered about.

Now of course I have no idea where she went from the last time I saw her on S.38th waiting for the light to change while I passed her to take that free right turn.  True, there are other stores and strip malls in the area and it's conceivable she could have stopped to run a short errand just like I did. And I do have to admit I find it a little hard to believe it took her those 7-8 minutes to wind her way to get to the same intersection the very same time I did.  But then again knowing the amount of traffic in that area at 3:00 PM and how long the red lights are, I suppose it's possible to lose that amount of time, especially if you caught each light.

Anyway, I guess I never know for sure as the odds of this happening again are probably as long as the odds that SR-16 exit work will finish before I retire. But until it is finished, I think I know which alternate way I'll probably be going more than others. After all, it's just a matter of relativity.