This Thanksgiving, I’m especially thankful for traffic jams – those ridiculous and often needless backups that ruin the great American holiday for so many.
First, let me frame my comments: Thanksgiving is THE multigenerational event in my family. Christmas is something done at home, where kids roll out of their own beds and straight to their tree, period.
So you’d better not miss Thanksgiving, rotated among my siblings and our still willing and able parents. There’s also now a whole passel of the next couple of generations to overwhelm the event. And dogs, lots of dogs.
And because one of my brothers has five grandkids all under the age of 3, we convened at his place in the Tennessee hills this year, meaning a drive of 400 or so miles for the rest of us, largely on I-40.
Tennessee, it so happens, is one of the eight states through which I-40 runs, and these states are all participating in the “I-40 Challenge,” the goal of which is zero fatalities over the holiday. Signs in Tennessee caution that troopers are located every 20 miles – and on Wednesday there seemed to be even more than that.
Traffic was heavy but fast when we came through, no issues and no accidents that we saw. So thank you, troopers, for at least getting folks’ attention.
But I’m really thankful that Tennessee is not Arkansas – because, once again, I-40 between Little Rock and Memphis could be counted on to be a parking lot. Two of the three carloads of Joneses knew to check Google traffic to know where to get off the Interstate and drive on parallel US 70.
