Pizza and the Longest Drive to Daytona Beach Ever!

We couldn't get together for Thanksgiving this year which was a big disappointment.  We originally planned to have a Thanksgiving dinner at my parent's house on Friday (day after Thanksgiving) - but I didn't ask off work in time and got scheduled to work before my day off request was approved.  

The next option was Saturday but Jon works Saturdays and Sundays.  He tried for a week to give his Saturday shift away but there were no takers. So, in the end, we decided to cancel our Thanksgiving and just meet for pizza yesterday instead. 

We planned to meet my parent's at 1:30. I picked up C.J. at noon and figured that would leave plenty of time for the drive there (which is a bit over an hour), stop by my sister's to pick her up and drop off Ollie, and be at the pizza place by 1:30.

And all was going well until 12:43 (oh yes, I remember the time exactly) and then - traffic jam.  Deadlock. Bumper to bumper.  Barely moving.  Crazy.  

We eventually learned that 4 unrelated accidents had been reported - two eastbound (the direction we were going) and two westbound and all between mile markers 122 and 125. Traffic was backed up for more than 10 miles and took 5 hours to clear. 

In the end we ended up moving about 5 miles in 2 hours and 10 minutes and then didn't move at all for about 1/2 hour.  

My parent's ended up waiting 2.5 hours at the pizza place for us.  

Thankfully the drive home was pretty uneventful.