Stuck in traffic with kids

Yesterday, I took 4 hours off from my vacation time pool. The day was overcast but dry (though threatening rain for the next day), and the kids were out of school on a Pro-D day, workload at the office was a little light... it's rare for everything to align so perfectly, so I decided to just go out and take advantage of the opportunity to go for a hike with my 2 oldest.

I live out on the flats where, although there are hikes, they're pretty flat. When we get the opportunity, we like to hike in the mountains. So that means, off we go across the bridge to the north shore where the mountains are.

We had a lovely time, but that's not why I'm telling you this.

On the way back, around 4:00 PM, we hit some rush hour traffic. We were crawling along at maybe 5 km/h for about 20 minutes. The kids in the back were having a great time, pulling each others' hair, giggling, calling each other "gooberface" or somesuch, being obnoxious to each other, and generally having the sort of giddy good time that kids do. I found this odd, because I was steaming about the frustratingly slow road progress. 

So I asked my 10-year old what she thought about this heavy traffic, in which I'm stuck frequently. She responded,
"It's not bad as long as you have tasty gum and good music to listen to."

And there you go. 

Not quite the amazing insight I was secretly hoping for, but I think there's some food for thought there. :)