One of my most frustrating travel experiences came on a Thanksgiving trip from Santa Barbara to Victorville, California. Traffic was heavy, but moving, until we were just about three miles from Victorville. Then it stopped — for hours. We were trapped in a line of cars that barely moved. There were no roads to either side, nothing but desert. We could have turned around but the only other route would have involved circling back and a 90-mile drive. Since we were only a couple of miles from our destination, we figured this mess was bound to clear up at some point. It finally did — three and a half hours later. Turns out it was a four-way stop that was backing everything up. Because, in spite of the massive housing boom Victorville was experiencing, the city fathers hadn't seen fit to install a traffic light