We were hoping that our trek from Macon to Lexington would be with fewer traffic issues. As it turns out, that was not the case. I realize that our lack of spring break travel frequency led us to believe that traffic wouldn’t be too bad. It seemed as if everyone was making the same drive. Yesterday, when we were going from Lexington to Chicago, we stopped at a Starbucks. They were upset that they were unable to fulfill orders as fast as possible and they even ran out of things. It was all spring break related. We are not used to that.
Back in the day, when the kids were young, we didn’t have the financial capability of travel because I was the only one working. When they were older and my salary much better, we all tended to have different vacations. The stars put us all on the same schedule maybe once in ten years. That meant that spring break was on a rotating basis for us.
We left Macon and the GPS told us our ETA. We always seem to add at least two hours in to that, when you consider stopping for gas, bathroom breaks, or picking up something to eat. We found Starbucks to be our best bet for a quick lunch and one in which we did not have to eat anything heavy. Getting a yogurt parfait or some cheese and crackers was great when we could find a Starbucks. Each day of travel from Florida to Chicago meant a trek from about nine in the morning (since we were not that ‘pushed’ to get in earlier) to about 6:00 PM or so.
Our day of travel from Macon, Georgia on to Lexington Kentucky was the worst in northern Tennessee where we had an hour of stop and go and when we arrived at the reason, a funneling of the lanes down to one, there was nothing whatsoever going on. No matter what, it was not really bad since we didn’t feel really pressed. I loved seeing the countryside between Florida and Chicago.
The main event, which I call Trump/Pence, happened in Tennessee. We were going own a steep grade and I was trying to avoid fast stops since they were freaking MK out. I saw a car ahead and attempted to slow down, not realizing that there was a black pickup truck riding my rear end of the car. I saw him literally throw up his hands from my rearview mirror. I could see he was mouthing a beautiful display of four letter words at my breaking. I quickly moved fast and went into the right lane. He did as well after passing me and barely missed the front of my car, still totally taken over by his anger. His Trump/Pence sticker was clearly visible on the glass of his cab. He then did a ‘bucking bronco’ maneuver despite my attempting to slow down to the point of not being too near him. About five times, he suddenly did a massive breaking of his speed and his car bounced as we came close to rear ending him. This was all with a massive display of flailing arms and apparent four letter word screaming. Of course, where were the police when you need them?
Luckily, he soon moved on, going into the left lane and weaving in and out of traffic.
Luckily, that was the only incident we had on the way to Lexington.
We got into Lexington around 5:30 PM or so. We pulled into a seemingly dilapidated farm where we were staying overnight at an Airbnb, a working farm.
More to come…