Now THAT is what I love about Atlanta…

If it isn’t the unseasonably warm weather making it possible to play tennis in shorts late in the evening on February 3rd, then it’s the “you never know what you’re gonna see on the interstate” drives into work.

Now I’ve seen some unusual things during my interstate travels… stuck in ridge-cut gridlock traffic in Chattanooga, I once saw an angry driver fling a cheeseburger out the window to splat onto the windshield of the car behind him. In slow, but heavy, traffic passing through Knoxville once, I saw two cars screech over to the shoulder, both drivers jump out, and start fist fighting. I can’t say, though, that I’ve ever seen anyplace except Atlanta have the wide assortment of highway debris. It’s a cliche (which just means it happens all the time) to see a mattress on the side of the road. Just the other day coming home from the movies, we were lucky enough to spot a mattress AND box springs propped gingerly again the concrete barrier on the left hand side coming over one of the overpasses at spaghetti-junction. We laughed one time on the way to six flags at everything we were seeing on the highway in such a short trip… mattresses then, too, I know.. and ladders (which are the ultimate cliche highway debris — a mattress and a ladder). On that trip we actually saw a huge metal sink on the shoulder, which led to cries of “it’s the kitchen sink! now we’ve seen it all!”

Oh well. All this reminiscing was brought on by the ride in this morning, of course, where I was privy to encounter some road debris before it had been moved to the shoulder. That’s always fun… flashback of dodging a lane full of planks last year… This morning wasn’t nearly so treacherous, though, as it seems a truck carrying rolls of insulation lost several bundles across the left two lanes. Traffic came to a rather sudden crawl, as cars either got over or simply made the obstacle course run swerving through the rolls, as I did, smiling all the while at the wonders of Atlanta’s highways.