Turkey Day Travel

I've never had to travel far on Thanksgiving. During college, I would be out of class the Tuesday before, early if I played my cards right. I'd pick up my car, pack up laundry and other "neccessities" and be on the road before late afternoon, playing oldies or Christmas music, singing my head off, picking up Biscuitville if i timed my departure correctly. I used to love driving home for the holidays, passing Christmas billboards and pictures of pardoned turkeys on the way, checking out how the color was changing and preparing for dealing with my family. It was easy and fairly stress free except through Durham, famous for the destructive construction that has been going on for years and seems endless.

Pulling into the driveway, I would breathe a sigh of relief, finally home for the break, out of school for a brief period of time, though my backpack was always in the trunk of my car. I'd unload, put in some laundry and seek out whoever was home. Generally that meet Coco (our dog) and Prissy (my cat) investigating my arrival and sniffing out everything that had come with me. Last year, I brought along my other cat, Edie, so she wouldn't have to spend the holidays alone or with a pet sitter I couldnt' afford. Then the arguments with my parents would begin, over the cost of living compared to what i was spending, how fast I drove home, why I had brought whatever I had brought. We would eat dinner, I'd watch a movie in my childhood bedroom and then fall asleep.

Heading back would be the same relaxed attitude. The smell of clean clothes drifting from the backseat, Edie content and asleep beside me, NPR on the radio. I didn't care what time I got back to school, so i was never a honker or anything like that. Though I do get upset when people treat the road as their playground and cause accidents. Besides that, though, I would arrive at my house ready to clean some and go to sleep in my equally comfortable bed there.

But this will be the first time I'll be flying home for the holidays and I'm about to chicken out. Last night on the news there was a whole story about how terrible traveling out of New York will be this year, that Newark, Laguardia and JFK are ranked the worst airports in the country for holiday travel. Try that on for size, will you? I can hardly believe it, that going on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving is the HARDEST TRAVEL DAY OF THE YEAR. I definitely would have thought Christmas would be worst but apparently people want to feel more like Pilgrims than Santa.

So I'm expected to be at the airport two hours early (as compared to my usual breathless 40-45 minutes) and on top of that, once I'm there, I should expect delays. Which makes no sense to me but seems to be completely normal, at least according to the reporter. Get there early and then wait for God knows how long. What happened to O'Hare being the worst place to be? I remember transferring out there and thinking that I was in Hell and had confused it with plane travel. But LaGuardia? LaGuardia has never been much of a problem. It's such a dinky airport no one really wants to fly in and out of it, or so I thought. The thing that really gets me, though, is WHY people travel by plane over the holidays if it's just going to create an undue amount of stress. I have an excuse- I had no idea before I purchase my Non-Refundable Plane Ticket, and a little online message never popped up to stop me. Is that everyone else's excuse? Will I be surrounded by people who didn't know it was the worst travel day of the year? Who are just as self-absorbed as I am and ignore the news for the most part? If so I can see how we're screwed, but I can't believe that people would actually want to do it every year if it's really that bad. I guess that in writing out these fears I'm really preparing for the experience, but maybe it won't be so bad. I've got reading materials and a large bottle of Advil.