Smog smut

This may sound strange, but I've always hoped to get stuck in traffic at the top of the south Sam fly-overs to southbound IH-45.  What a photo op that would be!!  I actually have a friend who did get stuck at the very top.  They were driving home during the Christmas Eve 2004 snowstorm - yes, a "snowstorm" (a very mild one) in Houston. 

While I was running madly through the streets taking pics of Houston's first ever white Christmas, my buddy and his family were involuntarily pondering the scene from hundreds of feet in the air... 

...because, by the time they got to the top of the fly-over, the icing conditions were so bad (remember the old mantra "bridges freeze before roads") that all of the traffic simply halted and stayed put for like an hour and a half or something!!  None of the drivers wanted to risk tobogganing out of control down the other side of the fly-over, and who could blame them?  I can't find any published accounts of how tall that ramp is, but it's huge. 

This Texas Freeways site uses the term "Full Stack" to describe that array of ramps, and in the passionate language known only to highway enthusiasts, they note, "Sprawling, high flying ramps, symmetric. Could this be the perfect stack?"  Perfect for taking photos, supposing you have a legitimate reason to stop there. 

Anyway, nine years after that event, I finally got a quasi-chance yesterday when traffic slowed to stop-and-go.  I couldn't get out of my car, but at a dead stop, at least I could point my camera out the window and make an attempt to capture the impressive scene.

So close, and yet so far...

 But for the love of Pete, why was everything so blurry and hazy??  Because someone set Veracruz on fire, apparently.  Dang the luck - I finally get up there, and I'm enveloped in smog and smoke. 

Oh well.  Maybe it will snow again soon.  Not.

Better luck next time.