So, knowing that the traffic wouldn't be great between Tacoma and Olympia, I scheduled to leave Tacoma by 4pm. When my daughter's ride didn't meet me until and hour later, we were stuck in the middle of something resembling this:

Transit Blog
The post from the above mentioned blog was from back in 2010 and let's just say the traffic from Exit 124 on I-5 in Tacoma to Exit 114 Nisqually is HORRIBLE. There are lane merges, lanes that end and basically, the parking lot you see above. The traffic blog site explains:

Traffic has gone from bad to worse near Joint Base Lewis-McChord.  Over the past five months14,000 soldiers have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, and the base is set to expand by 50% more soldiers by 2016 (from 23,000 to 36,000), bringing the total number of soldiers, civilians, and dependents at JBLM to well over 50,000 people.  This Redmond-sized contingent of people mostly reside off-base along a narrowed stretch of I-5 (SR 512 to Nisqually)with no HOV lanes and only skeletal (at best) transit service.  Travel demand has increased markedly and tempers are short, prompting nervous press releases from WSDOT announcing “immediate actions” that amount to little more than signal timing improvements.  Everyone knew this storm was coming, but the scale of the backups seems to have caught base officials as well as WSDOT off-guard.  This may now be the single worst traffic area in Washington State.

I usually avoid this 10 mile stretch of road as it can take upwards of and hour to travel it at its worst. Alas, I needed to travel from Tacoma to Chehalis to Morton and this was the logical route. Can't say I'll sign up for that again. They at least need an HOV lane, with or without a toll for under the minimum, like Hwy 167 (Valley Freeway). It's not that I'm a fan of tolls, but I would gladly pay $.50-$2.50 to travel at freeway speeds in the HOV lanes. They also need to re-engineer the off-ramps an on-ramps. They are terrible in this stretch. The exit only lanes need to be marked for 1/2 mile, not 2 miles. Grrrr! There are lots of other great suggestions on the blog, but none that I'm aware of have been implemented.

I'm getting nervous about commuting to school in September. Fortunately, I do not have to travel the dreaded road previously mentioned.