Traffic Jam

Tuesday day before Thanksgiving, and the house is almost ready.  The kids' room is at Defcon 2 (down from a catastrophic level four), most of the laundry's done (that was going to get done before Sunday), beds are made and ready for guests, and I only have the shopping left to do.  I dropped the kids at school and turned south on Route 7A going out of Arlington.  I got to the turn off for the highway but, not seeing anyone in front of me, decided to stay on the slower road to Bennington.A meandering two lane country road dotted with  a few farms and the occasional white-steepled church, Historic 7A (as it's known in the tour guides) is even more scenic as the November morning brushed the trees and meadows with a muted pink and green frost.  Usually I'm too preoccupied with to-do's to absorb the view, but this is my last bit of quiet before a long weekend of entertaining, and I am determined to enjoy the drive - as long as it doesn't take too long.But I'm coming around a curve, about to set the cruise control when the back end of a decelerating dump truck magically appears in front of me, interrupting my view and my plan.  He continues to slow down, and I roll my eyes.  What now?  We are now crawling forward, but my curiosity is short-lived.A few seconds later we get to the cause of the slowdown. It is a single flagger directing traffic around another orange-vested road worker. On the side of the road, parked in someone's yard is an orange VTrans pickup.  And then I see the flagger has a couple helpers.As the flagger steps out into the road, a couple of Rhode-Island Reds appear, inspecting the scuffed dirt around the parked pickup.The dump truck and I slowly down a bit more, but we don't even stop. I watch the dump truck weave carefully around the flag man, and the flag man waves.  The dump truck driver probably doesn't know the guy.  I don't either, but a second later I pass and wave too.I accelerate out of the last curve.  The car speeds up, but I've completely slowed down.