Hindsight

Note to self: Never ever travel on Thanksgiving weekend.

What was I thinking? I was thinking it sounded like a great trip.

One of my daughters is a professor in Florida. Last year, in order to limit student travel during the pandemic, school started early, skipped the Monday holidays, and was finished by Thanksgiving. The school decided to do it again this year. Since she would be off and her dad, aka my husband, wasn't working (in an office, at least), she said we should come down after Thanksgiving to see St Augustine decorated for Christmas.

It was a great idea. I started planning. A couple of days to wrap things up and pack and we could be on the road on Sunday. We needed to be home the following weekend for another commitment, but that was enough time.

Why didn't it occur to me that this would be one of the busiest travel days of the year? It's something I'm very well aware of, but that little bit of info went into deep storage in my brain and never even gave a little wave to remind that me it was there.

A couple of hours into the drive Sunday, it jumped out waving both arms and yelling, "Now you remember, don't you?"

We spent nine hours covering a distance that should have taken fewer than six. It felt as though we were driving in a school zone the entire time.

It also gave rise to a lot of very irritated people doing crazy things to try to get out of the clog. But the clog never ended. There wasn't any construction and we only saw one small accident. It was just a plethora of cars.

The rest stops were packed. All the fast food places are only open for drive-thru service, which cuts down on the number of places available for bathroom stops. In one rest area cars were cruising around waiting to pounce on an empty parking spot. Kind of like Christmas Eve at the mall. Wait ... we don't do that anymore. But you know what I mean.

The whole day one word was running through my mind: "Stupid!"

"Stupidstupidstupid!"

In the end it was worth it. St. Augustine does a bang-up job of lighting the old part of the city. We toured in style--in a trolley blaring Christmas carols and everyone singing along.

The following night we went to the beach for a different sort of lighting display called Deck the Chairs. Various organizations take a lifeguard's chair and decorate it however they want. They varied from pretty to incomprehensible, but they were all fun.  

But learn from me. Never, never, NEVER travel on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. It doesn't matter if it's by car, plane, kayak, or roller skates.

Don't do it!