The Trip North

Springtime in Florida means two things...northern snowbirds and collegiate spring breakers.  It's a great boost for the local economy but for us locals it can sometimes be exasperating.  So what to do when your little piece of paradise becomes too crowded?  Why head north, of course!  (Hey, I wanna be a pain in someone's butt too.  LOL!)

Unfortunately our trek north found us caught in very heavy interstate traffic. We left home at 10:30 AM on a Saturday morning and it was soon evident that a good 50% of the vehicles on I-95 were from out of state.  Yep, we were caught in the "great northern migration homeward."  While traffic was heavy, it didn't get really bad until Jacksonville and continued on through Georgia.  We had no idea however that it was about to get worse.  Eleven miles into South Carolina began what was to become a slow and tedious 29 mile crawl north through the state.  (And when I say "crawl", I'm being extremely generous. Most of that 29 miles was bumper to bumper at less than five mph interspersed with no fewer than a dozen stand stills.)

So what to do when you're stuck on the highway with hours and hours ahead of you? Well, for starters, you can take photos of course...

(Is that not outrageous????)

We'd began the license plate game soon after leaving home and had an impressive list going but when you're stuck behind the same cars for 29 miles, the game becomes a total bust.  I did text my dear friend Catherine several photos of the the northern license plates (which no doubt totally bored her as well) but for privacy's sake, I won't share those photos online.  *wink*

So now what?  Well Meg, always the optimist, began looking for BigFoot in the woods alongside the highway.  (Yes, she totally believes and her obsession is best left for it's own post.)  Needless to say, BigFoot was too smart to get caught anywhere near this traffic jam.   In fact, there wasn't a critter to be seen anywhere.

After about an hour of this we got a bit more creative.  There's always a laugh to be had in being a Pringle Duck.

Meg got the biggest kick out of the fact that it took me no less than a dozen attempts before I could master the geometry of creating a duck bill out of two pressed potato chips.  I did prevail in the end.

In the end it took us two hours to cover twenty-nine miles of South Carolina interstate.  I'm just so grateful that I didn't have to pee 'cause folks, "there was nuttin' nowhere."  Interestingly, we saw no lane closures, no accidents, no police vehicles and no road work of any kind.  The traffic did start to move around MM 40 (6:30ish PM) and we eventually made it to I-26 to start the turn westward. It turns out that this highway was no less crowded but fortunately the traffic was moving at a decent rate.  Of course we encountered an additional hiccup when we decided to stop for the night.  It took us five attempts to locate a room.  (Everybody's a tourist!!!)

As an aside, the following Saturday on the return trip home, the northern traffic on that same 29 mile stretch of I-95 was again bumper to bumper.  I carefully watched to see if I could identify the source of the problem. Guess what? THERE WASN'T ANYTHING!  WTH?????

I have no doubt that I have just succeeded in boring you as much as we were there that day sitting in traffic. I do hope however that it didn't take up two hours of your day.  *wink*  Thanks for sticking with me.