Today is a big travel day in the US. Good news for those thinking about using the PA Turnpike:
WNEP (Wilkes-Barre/Scranton) – Pennsylvania Turnpike workers are on strike. Union employees, including toll takers and maintenance workers, walked off the job before 4:00 a.m Wednesday. They’ve been without a contract since September of 2003. The main issues are pay and benefits.
There will be no charge for travelers on the turnpike Wednesday. If the strike is still going on Thursday, managers will man some of the toll booths. A flat rate of $2 for passenger vehicles and $15 for commercial vehicles will begin after midnight, no matter where you are going.And now the bad news:
(CNN) — Tornado warnings in the South, snow in the Midwest and heavy rain along the East Coast could make holiday travel go from bad to worse on Wednesday.
“People need to get on the road now,” CNN meteorologist Chad Myers said. “By noon, much of the country is going to be a mess.”
Myers predicts snow, rain and fog will hamper travel in some of the biggest cities and on the busiest highways.
Interstate 70 in Missouri should get a dusting of snow while Interstate 80 will be wet east of Chicago and snowy to the west.
“This is going to be like the movie ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles.’ There’s going to be no way to get from here to there,” Myers said.”Sixbucks and my right nut says were not landing in Chicago.” (John Candy in Planes, Trains and Automobiles).
Let’s hear you worst holiday travel story, or favorite PTA story…
Whenever we’d go from Chicago to Boston, we’d go via the PTA. We’d dine at the Mercer Diner in Mercer and then stop in Scranton near some restaurant that had an excellent three-layer ice-cream-and-brownie fudge cake.
Okay, so I’ve got nothing.
On an August Thursday afternoon (3:00)… Two fifteen miles sections of cones closing off the passing lane. Not a sole working, not a single peice of equipment nearby, not an inch of the roadway under repair. It looked like the overpasses were marked for upgrades but only because of the dayglow paint marking sections of guardrail and some stantions. Three hours to go forty miles.
Blown valves on an engine, requiring new engine block…on Interstate in the middle of a very huge and non populated area in the Northwest…
Lucky for me, a brother with a flat bed trailer (he actually has one) and a big old Ford truck drove two hours to retrieve me. Then found an engine, and then got one of his friends to replace the engine, start to go. Otherwise, I’d still be in some place after Nowhere, trying to figure out a plan.
But then, there were the many overnight sleepovers in hard, plastic seats in Chicago’s O’Hare airport, thanks to blizzards. Whoever decided to put that major airport hub where they did had too much beer.
I survived the blizzard of 78 in Cleveland Hopkins airport. We landed, and then they closed the field before my connecting flight took off.
Took all afternoon to get thru the lines to get hotel vouchers, then to the hotel, arriving about 10 hours after landing.
The next day, trudging 2 blocks thru 6 foot high snow, hauling all my luggage to get to the ride to the airport, where we spent all afternoon waiting for the connecting flight to Ohare.
Finally got to KC about 10 pm, and back to college after midnight.
Happy Thanksgiving to ALL~~~
I am going to VA for the holiday weekend. I was suppose to be on the road already but the window installation in my place is taking longer than I thought. It is now almost 1pm & they are still working. I am going from NJ to VA. If it gets any later I may be inclined to leave in the middle of the night instead. The holiday traffic is nuts & rain only makes people crazier.
Life IS good tho…. We have alot to be thankful for. Personally as well as nationally.
1) Bush won…the country is safe from terrorists.
2) The stock market is up & job gains are getting bigger…
3) Gas prices are dropping
4) Peterson was found guilty…hunting season on women is finally over 🙂
5) Arafat is dead…maybe now there is hope to work on the PEACE aspect with Israel.
6) I’m thankful for my job, my health, my family & friends…. AND MY WINDOWS ARE FINALLY BEING INSTALLED. Yea~~~~
7) Christmas is just around the corner. :))
It’s the moooost wonderful time ..of the year!
A HAPPY & HEALTHY HOLIDAY SEASON TO ALL!
Thanks bloggers for being the super sleuths that you are. God bless~~~
A few years back, I was on a business trip to Boise, Idaho. It was supposed to be an in-and-out in a day kind of thing. But an unexpected snow storm snuck up, and I was stranded there overnight.
I was traveling with my boss at the time, a dumpy, 60 year old engineer from Taiwan. I was about 35, and if I may say so, the proverbial tall, dark and handsome type. Kind of longish hair, a beard, but a pure white American male.
We found a hotel for the evening (separate rooms, of course), and then headed out to get dinner around 7:00 PM. Every place in town was packed. We settled on a nice place that one of my bosses coworkers had recommended to him once.
The wait was about an hour and a half, so we headed to the bar. He was a two beer max kind of guy, but not me, no way. I hit the martinis, and hit them hard. Had about 4 down by the time we got to the table a little after 8:00. It seemed that most customers that evening were nicely dressed couples. Nice place.
We sat down, and soon, even in my drunken stupor, I couldn
Was watching CNN at lunch.
NEWSFLASH!!!
It’s the day before Thanksgiving and traffic on the interstate system is getting heavy. Who’d a thunk it!
Prediction :
In 4 weeks, the same intrepid reporters will be out with their camera crews, on an overpass, showing pictures of bumper-to-bumper traffic reporting that “NEWSFLASH!!! It’s the day before Christmas and traffic on the interstate system is getting heavy”. That is the ones who haven’t been sent to the airport to report. “NEWSFLASH!!! It’s the day before Christmas and passenger traffic here is really heavy”.
You continue with bleeding edge coverage like this piece and you just might get to be Main Stream Media.
10 years ago or so, I was driving back to the U of Ark after visiting my folks for Thanksgiving. A young girl coming from the other direction crossed over into my lane. My car was totaled. Luckily I had no broken bones or blood loss, just a swollen neck.
In 1978, our Northern Illinois class took the traditional eighth grade field trip to Washington D.C. We left on December 28 and were supposed to return on December 31, at about 10pm.
Except O’hare closed down due to a blizzard…
So, imagine yourself as one of five or six chaperones to fifty-some 13 year old boys and girls for three extra days in our nation’s capitol (including New Year’s Eve).
Mind you…this is not MY horror story…but I guarantee it was SOMEONE’s!
Good times….
I took a trip to France and ended up dead. I’m in Hell now, which is a much better neighborhood.
It would behoove everyone born since 1960 and raised up in the US Public School system to click on the link below and learn the Real Thanksgiving story. I almost choked when I heard this. It’s really different than everything public education ever taught me about Thanksgiving!!!
RushLimbaugh.com: The Real Story of Thanksgiving
It’s even better than I had thought. It’s a story of Free Enterprise and Individual rights over collectivism and socialism. Go figure!