Tag: I-75

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The Rains Came

I-75 Rain storm GA 08-18-2013After all the fits and starts of Day One of my Return to Florida Journey, I was hoping things would go better Sunday. I saw it was raining, so I slept in to give it a chance to pass through.

It was late, so I skipped breakfast so I could stop at Dave’s Modern Tavern atop Monteagle Pass for their incredible lobster bisque and Oink Moo Burger. It was as good as ever.

Traffic was light going through Atlanta. I don’t think we ever came to a creep and crawl full stop through the whole town. Just about the time I hit the Macon bypass, the sky opened up. Southbound traffic was moving OK, but I saw the northbound lanes backing up and emergency vehicles headed that way. I took that as a sign to stop at the next rest area for a 22-minute nap to let the bad weather move on.

Weird storm cloud

Not too far down the road, this strange cloud came up. Fog was swirling out of the trees and the leading edge of this squall was white, not black. A couple of miles down the road, it was monsoon city.

Maybe somebody can explain to me why people drive with their four-way flashers on. I admit to turning mine on if there is a sudden slowdown in traffic, but I turn them back off as soon as I see the vehicles behind me are slowing. Three lanes of idiot drivers kept blinking away for four or five miles, making it impossible to figure out if they were braking or just blinking.

I hit moderate to heavy rain off and on all the way to Florida, but traffic was light and my Rain-X kept the windshield clear.

It’ll be good to get home Monday night. I wonder if the locks have been changed?

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General Sherman, We Need You

I was making great progress heading back to Florida from Cape. The weather was great, traffic was light to moderate, everybody was pretty well-behaved.

Well, there was a bit of a delay at Monteagle Pass, but we’ll go into that another day. I’ve got a couple of different routes I take; this time I opted to go through Atlanta on 1-75. I’ve been lucky the last few times, blasting through the area in about 30 minutes with only a few taps on the brakes.

Coming into town just about dusk, I thought I was gong to catch a break again. See how nicely the traffic is spaced out?

Look at all the taillights

Alas, around the corner was a forest of red taillights as far as you could see. It took 1-1/2 hours to do what I have been doing in 30 minutes. The skies were clear. There were no wrecks. It was just like everybody confused and thought the Interstate was one big parking lot and they needed to practice for Black Friday.

General Sherman had the right idea

I’ve always been convinced that General Sherman had the right idea of what to do with Atlanta.

[Wife Lila, who always exhibits better taste than I do, objected to my General Sherman suggestion, pointing out the death and destruction he meted out on horrific March to the Sea. Atlanta, to me, has been the source of major traffic jams, is the home of the Atlanta Braves and was where our corporate HQ was located. None of those things endear the city to me. Maybe we could just build bypasses that bypass the bypasses that exist around the city and leave General Sherman to his rest.]

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