Thank you, Joe Biden!

Ok, first the facts.  Vice President Joe Biden  (Pronounced like Bye Bye) was in Nashville this last Thursday to deliver the keynote address at the National League of Cities conference. He was here for several days and stayed at the hotel right downtown.  I like Biden. A damn sight more than I like his boss, but let's not get into that.  

Ok, so Biden was in town. His speech is completed and he's headed to the airport.  Have you ever had the Pres or Vice Pres in your city headed to the airport?  It works like this:

First, the Secret Service (who are none too secret if you ask me) put together an unknown path from the aforementioned hotel to the additionally aforementioned airport.  Just before Mr. VP is ready to go, they lock down the chosen path by blocking any and all traffic into this corridor. Into the limo, big black SUVs pull out and it's off to the airport. The corridor is not unblocked until the entire entourage is several minutes past. When they are sure they won't need to return to the point of origin, they re-open the streets.

Simple, yes?  Yes.  

What this means if you've never experienced it, is that during frakking rush hour, none of the major streets are available to get home! It means that all the traffic that regularly uses these roads (4 lane streets, 8 lane highways and the like) is trying desperately to find some way to get home. It means plenty of angry drivers driving on routes they don't want to be on, driving bumper to bumper, stop and go. And the result: it took my bus about 2 and a half hours to complete a route it usually takes only 30 minutes to complete!  

Thanks, Joe!

There is only one major advantage to this and it's only for those of us to take the bus or ride in ride share.  We have time to read.  I may have been ravenous when I got home to my dried out dinner (Biden's fault, not the wife...) but I had time to finish a book I started only that morning.  So, again, Thanks, Joe!

But yeah, the dinner was dry and for that, yeah, Thanks again, Joe.