Not THIS off-ramp

While driving down highway H1 this morning, DH and I ran into a traffic snarl. Either construction or an accident had brought traffic to a dead halt on the off-ramp that we wanted to take.

"No problem," I said. "We'll just get off here, make a U-turn and work our way around to the right direction."

"Here" was the off-ramp to an air force base and naval base. I zipped off the H1, feeling pretty smart and headed on down the now-clear road. Four lanes opened out, two going to the air force base and two going to the naval base. Uh oh. The road went only to the military bases, no side streets or other exits in sight.

We eased onto the visitor's lane for the naval base hoping for an easy exit. It was not to be so. The road in did not seem to lead easily out. I turned the car around in amongst the barracks or some kind of housing and headed back to the gate. Not as easy as it looked. As I barreled the wrong way into what I thought was the exit, DH screeching and flapping her hands at me, I noticed that I had gotten the attention of the men directing base traffic. All six of them, in uniform, with pistols at their hips. Yikes. I thought about holding up my hands but figured that they'd prefer my hands stay on the wheel. Happily, the pistols stayed snugged into their holsters.

One of the men marched (and I mean marched!) over to the car and seemed to accept my babbling explanation of being lost and headed for Pearl City, not Pearl Harbor. He instructed me as to what to do to get on the right road and then turned to bellow to his colleague.

"U-Turn!"

The colleague, also with pistol in holster, waved me around the gate, and between the traffic cones while incoming traffic was held up to let us pass. Jeez. There's no such thing as an innocently made wrong turn around here. Who knew that the off-ramp led strictly to the military base? (As I'm typing this three helicopters are flying overhead in formation. Does that mean we went from a mention on the daily report at the naval base to a fly-over? Are we on a list?)

Believe me, I'll never do that again. If the sign says "to the base" I'll believe it and go another way. Problem is, there are so darn many bases on this island, it's hard to avoid them. But hey, there is a funny side to this. See the H1 is one of those freeways with a blue and red sort of shield-sign. If you look closely at those signs on your local highways, you'll see that the red part says Interstate. Now typically, that would mean that the road leads to another state, but in our case, the next state is across about 2500 miles of open water. In fact the next county is a boat ride away not a drive. So the three interstates on Oahu- H1, H2 and H3, really just go in circles, like the rest of the roads here. And like some of the drivers.