5/13/10

Akron, Ohio and Chattanooga, Tennessee.  Off the top of my head, these two cities have the most disproportionate afternoon traffic in the country.  Not necessarily the heaviest traffic.  That would belong to places like Chicago, Miami, New York, Los Angeles and, ahem, Austin.  But for two cities that aren't all that big, Akron and Chattanooga seem to get bizarrely congested.  According to the mighty W, Akron has a population of slightly over 200,000 people.  Also according to the W, Chattanooga has something less than 200,000 people.  Hit either town in the afternoon and you'll be lucky to maintain a 25mph pace.  This inconsequential bit of half-baked analysis comes to you this evening courtesy of today's route.  I got to Chattanooga at 3:20pm and it was a parking lot.  No apparent reason for it.  Just traffic at a dead stop.

Aside from that little bit of annoyance, the day's drive wasn't bad.  I caught Knoxville (a much bigger city than Chattanooga) right at 5pm so the traffic was heavy, but it was moving at 55mph.  Since the nominal speed limit there is 55mph, I just hung out in the right lane and let people make their way around me.

I was looking forward to listening to the Tigers tonight once I got parked in White Pine, Tennessee.  Alas, I forgot that today was Thursday and the game was in Detroit.  They play day games up there on Thursdays. Bummer.  The boys won again though, taking three out of four from the Evil Empire this week.  Not too shabby.

I covered a little over 400 miles today, so I guess I'm ahead of the required pace to reach Massachusetts by Sunday night.  Depending on how the next couple of days go, I may just finish the trip on Saturday and take a day off.  Or maybe I'll just work 4-5 hours a day for the next few days.  You know how it goes.  We'll just hit the road whenever the sun wakes me tomorrow and then let the chips fall where they may.