Visited hubby at the VA today. 38.8 miles round trip, most of it freeway, at top speeds for a change (that will change as the evening wears on and everyone heads home).

As is true every year around this holiday (and at Thanksgiving, too), the freeways are filled with people who drive them only once or twice a year. Or with people who are from out of state.

Freeway driving, as a result, becomes a hypervigilant activity. One never knows when some idiot in the #1 lane will say, "Oh, that's my exit right there," and zoom across 5 lanes of traffic, everyone doing 70 miles an hour, scaring old ladies and truck drivers out of their wits as they narrowly miss every bumper and hood, coming nearly to a stop at the top of the exit, with traffic coming up behind them at a furious clip.

Sometimes they don't make it. One can hear the sirens and the police choppers for miles.

The other kind of idiot, seeing what might be his off-ramp, comes to a rolling stop (no brake lights) in order to check his map, in 70 mile-per-hour traffic....

On the other hand, it's a great opportunity to see out of state license plates. On my way home I saw plates from Ohio, Iowa, Minnesota (so they do have internal combustion engines there!), New Jersey and Hawaii (did they drive all the way here?).

I used to keep a running list of states, trying to collect them all, but this year I'm just looking. Ohio was particularly difficult to decode the state name. I practically had to park in their back seat--but of course we California drivers are beyond reproach....

What's that you say? Who, me? Scare the tourists?