I thought it was an anti-mask protest. I was wrong.

I assumed there had been an accident and the backup was from all the rubbernecking. Usually I avoid I-70 for just such reasons, but my son was home sick with a cough, and I had an errand to run in St. Charles, a city adjacent to St. Louis. Then, as the traffic crept along, my 4-year-old son in a car seat behind me, I noticed that there were several cars scattered along the shoulder of the road, with their drivers standing beside them.