Spring is finally here in the northeast. Azaleas and lilacs are blooming. Temperatures are warming up. People are getting a nicer — not a lot but a little bit nicer.

The winter wasn’t that bad here. It was considered very mild. April hasn’t had the same above average temperatures but the weather forecasters are promising a glorious week. If we can hump through until mid-May, we should be well on our way to continuous wonderful weather.

However, weather isn’t the only harbinger of spring. Waking up from their long winter’s nap in deep, dark, dank caves shared by hibernating bears are the road crews. They come to life around now and wreak havoc on drivers everywhere.

They enjoy playing games like closing two bridges over a river so that drivers need to go 20 miles out of their way. Most times they close the road a good two weeks before work starts. It gives us time to get used to it before they actually have people there. They pop up signs like, “temporary inconvenience, permanent improvement.” What they don’t tell you is that the inconvenience will last until the snows come back.

They are currently working on a bridge renewal not too far from my home. It’s on a major artery so they have not closed the road, just limited the lanes. I have figured out the best way to get around it because I go through the area a couple of times a week and frankly, I am not a patient person. I never see too much work going on. Usually, there are four to six guys looking at something. I am never sure what they are looking at but they are looking. This past trip, they were looking over the old bridge, intently staring at something. Possibly a squirrel?

Once in a while there will be a big dump truck trying to navigate in an area congested with grumpy motorists who are waiting until Mr. Trucker can back it up and dump something.

The last bridge renewal near my home actually closed the main road during a five-day festival. What a mess.

Eventually the project will be completed and it will be better. I just don’t know why it takes so long. The beloved husband read a story about an eight-lane bridge in California (yes, the same state with the cancer warnings) that was rebuilt in a round-the-clock work program over a weekend. Sounds like a really good idea to me.

In the meantime, just keep the road between me and Starbucks cleared so grumpy Kate can be transformed into Happy Kate in the morning.

Photo credits — happy face courtesy via Google, road sign courtesy of theinvisiblewombat via Flickr and the road crew courtesy of stimulusq via Google