Wednesday, September 03, 2003
Wow - it's been awhile since the last entry. We've just gone through that strange ritual called a summer holiday. In this case it was Labor day -- the so-called last summer holiday. I'm always amazed that people go through so much work for something that's called a vacation. There's a highway that goes along the edge of town here and heads north and south. I-75. For whatever reason a holiday in this part of the state requires you to "go up north." This means that on Fridays the highway is jam-packed going north and on Sunday, it's jammed packed going south. And I mean packed. It's a 3 lane highway and all three lanes are practically bumper to bumper. Of course, 90% of the vehicles are SUVs and pickups with about half of them hauling a boat, mobile home, camper, trailer full of ATVs or some such noise inducing method of relaxation. Usually, there will be a traffic accident -- or two or three -- and the drivers all get to partake of viewing the nice scenery at a very slow pace -- usually about 0 mph.
I'm lucky. I travel just the opposite direction on my long weekends. It's really quite strange in a way. On the way down to Toronto, I can zip along the southbound lane and watch ALL that traffic swarming north. When I return, it's just the opposite. I'm cruising north on a mostly empty highway while the southbound traffic is usually stopped three lanes wide bumper to bumper for at least part of my trip.
Is that really the way you want to end a vacation? You spend the weekend forgetting about work relaxing next to the blue waters covered in PWVs (personal water vehicle - a noxious noisy small plastic hulled craft with a smelly and sonorous sounding engine in it designed expressly to annoy and annihilate any small chance of peaceful waters), bass boats with 3000 horsepower motors on them. And once that is done you get to hurry back home sandwiched inbetween SUVs and RVs with an average speed of 5 mph. And of course nowadays, you also get to watch the road rage folks turn the highway into target practice. It seems like every month or so you can count on some macho nitwit in a vehicle getting pissed at another macho nitwit in his vehicle and killing or severely injuring some innocent soul minding their own business going down the road.
2fers: http://www.autoclubgroup.com/michigan/ and http://www.ihpva.org/
I'm lucky. I travel just the opposite direction on my long weekends. It's really quite strange in a way. On the way down to Toronto, I can zip along the southbound lane and watch ALL that traffic swarming north. When I return, it's just the opposite. I'm cruising north on a mostly empty highway while the southbound traffic is usually stopped three lanes wide bumper to bumper for at least part of my trip.
Is that really the way you want to end a vacation? You spend the weekend forgetting about work relaxing next to the blue waters covered in PWVs (personal water vehicle - a noxious noisy small plastic hulled craft with a smelly and sonorous sounding engine in it designed expressly to annoy and annihilate any small chance of peaceful waters), bass boats with 3000 horsepower motors on them. And once that is done you get to hurry back home sandwiched inbetween SUVs and RVs with an average speed of 5 mph. And of course nowadays, you also get to watch the road rage folks turn the highway into target practice. It seems like every month or so you can count on some macho nitwit in a vehicle getting pissed at another macho nitwit in his vehicle and killing or severely injuring some innocent soul minding their own business going down the road.
2fers: http://www.autoclubgroup.com/michigan/ and http://www.ihpva.org/
