Sorry Virginia.....

My Christmas story begins way back in February as I braved traffic jams from Richardson all the way through Allen three times a week as HOV lanes were constructed to improve Central Expressway/75. Not just any old HOV lane but a special HOV lane with what looks like miles of picket fence w/o the crossbar. Using my amazing powers of foresight I came to a quick opinion and prediction. Boy, that's stupid, how many of those pickets are going to get blasted to Kingdom-come every day and who will be stupid enough to get stuck in a lane where you are basically trapped in case of an accident or breakdown. My Christmas story picks up the Friday before Christmas as the 100 Farmers family attempted to leave on our trip to Grandmother's house across the Red River, over the Arbuckle Mountains, through the Ouachita Forest and into Stillwater we go. Yo ho. Here's where my amazing powers of foresight proved true as the "one day opened" HOV became a dammed(or should I say DAMNED) river of cars causing a 35 mile trail out of Dallas to last almost two hours. My powers of common sense must have been blocked by my other powers though because I was one of the idiots stuck in the HOV lane in Richardson. We sat and sat and watched lucky cars with one passenger whiz by. I wanted to believe in the powers of TxDoT during the Christmas season but the facts are hard to ignore. Sorry Virginia, the spirit of mass transportation does not exist here in Dallas.