Developing rain and nightmare travel and hopes for safe travel

Every year, Thanksgiving begins with such promise. The action begins at the grocery store, moves to the kitchen, then to the car or the airport for the trip to "grandmother's house," onward through naps and football and once-a-year conversations.

If you live in a metro area such as Atlanta, you know--from experience or listening to the news--that the holiday often ends in a travel nightmare. In this neck of the woods, we see giant traffic jams on I-75 and I-85 south as cars heading through the metro area sometimes back up to the Tennessee and South Carolina borders. The reports out of the airports are equally grim.

If I were suddenly appointed Tsar of Thanksgiving, I think I would issue an edict stating that the Monday after Thanksgiving would be a random holiday, held on a scattered basis so that everyone in the country isn't headed back to work at the same time.

Florida and Georgia would celebrate the holiday in alternating years. So would most other adjacent states. Then, like the staggered quitting times proposed in some metro areas to reduce the rush hour traffic, we might see fewer traffic jams, fewer wrecks, fewer injuries and fewer fatalities.

This year, rain moved into north and central Georgia, and I'm happy to say that my wife and I beat the rain back to the house. We had to leave her dad's farm a few hours earlier than planned, but it was worth it. A lot of people are still out there on the road now or sitting in an airport worrying about airport delays and cancelled flights.

It's a heck of a way to end the holiday. There are years when my list of things to be thankful for includes making it safely back home. I don't hear much rain on the roof yet here in Jackson County. But it's close.

And without driving out past the McDonalds and the QuickTrip and the KFC at the I-85 interchange, I know that there's a long line of red railights southbound toward the Sugar Hill exit, Gwinnett County and Atlanta. Many of those cars are headed for Macon and points south on into Florida with many miles to go before they're safely back home.

Since my wife and I are cozy and warm back inside our house with a tasty leftovers left to consume, I'm happy to say that as nice as Thanksgiving is, I'm a bit glad it's now a memory, and I send out white light to those on the roads and in the air in hopes they'll travel safe.

--Malcolm