March 31, 2023 - April 1, 2023 - The Trip Home

NOTE: I tried to change the header to include both RVs and the new home in Florida. I haven't figured out how to do it and accidentally deleted the photo of Marge. I will work to correct that. Designing the layout for blogspot is quite confusing.

Well, the trip home is never fun. This year with not hauling a fifth wheel home, we thought it would be better. WE WERE SO WRONG. 

We left Golden Gate at 7:00 a.m. on Friday with our goal of getting to Atlanta the first night. Everything was fine until about forty miles South of Atlanta. The traffic slowed to a crawl with no end in sight. We had been in the traffic jam for an hour or more when we decided to pull off and find a room in McDonough, Georgia. Once settled in the room Kelly broke out the sandwiches she had made for the trip. We went to bed early with the intention of leaving early in the morning. The drive from Atlanta to Perryville is about eight hours. We were up at six and hit the breakfast buffet before taking off. Our plan was to leave by 7:00 a.m. expecting traffic to be a breeze on Saturday.

Upon watching the weather we learned that very severe thunderstorms were coming into our area and the Atlanta area. We decided to let them pass through before heading North. After three boring hours sitting in the room, we left at 10:00 a.m. Upon getting back on I-24 we found the traffic immediately backed up almost the entire thirty-five miles from McDonough to Atlanta.

We assumed the backup was due to hard rains at the time. Finally, we made it to Atlanta and sailed right through downtown on a Saturday morning. Then the trouble began.

For whatever reason, the traffic was “stop and go” from North of Atlanta all the way until about ten miles North of Chattanooga. Over 130 miles! We couldn’t believe it. I doubt that we averaged thirty miles per hour the entire time. This was a Saturday. What was going on? We never did find out.

We never saw a cause for a traffic backup anywhere. There were no construction zones nor any accidents. It appeared just to be a volume issue. It took us over five hours to get from South of Atlanta to North of Chattanooga. Normally this is a two-hour trip.

North of Chattanooga the traffic started to move near the speed limit, yet there were still areas where traffic slowed down for unknown reasons. It was crazy bad driving the entire day.

Due to the traffic backups, we did not arrive in Perryville until 8:00 p.m. We had gained an hour so we actually drove eleven hours on the second leg of the trip. We have been taking this route for over ten years and always experienced slowdowns in Atlanta and Chattanooga. This trip the slowdown was over a hundred and thirty miles long between the two cities. This was the absolute worst traffic we had ever seen. We don’t know if this was a fluke, or if this is what is to be expected on I-24 from now on.  We are going to look at other possible routes for our trip back in the fall.

Arriving home, we found everything to be in order except the guest restroom toilet kept leaking every five minutes and filling the tank back up.  It was the flapper. I bought a new flapper after church on Sunday and installed it. Problem corrected.

Sunday after church we unpacked the car and truck. We now have lots of items to dispose of out the fifth wheel. Most will go to the thrift store. Sunday was a beautiful day - sunny and in the 60s. I mowed the grass and then grilled some pork steaks while sitting on the deck with an adult beverage. It is good to be home. Now I have to get everything together to get my taxes prepared. ARGH!