Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Thanksgiving triplog #19
South of Harrisburg PA · Sun, 29 Nov 2025. 8:20am.

Today's the day we run the gantlet of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles to head home from Pennsylvania after Thanksgiving... and it's snowing! I'd seen precipitation in today's weather forecast a few days ago. I figured it would come as rain as the temperatures were too warm for snow. But evidently it's a bit cooler than the forecast as I woke up to this sight.



Well, this isn't what it looked like when I woke up. This photo is from just before we left my inlaw's house at 8am. I think the snow only started at about 7am since I watched it accumulate outside the window as I sat down to eat breakfast.

Will this snow interfere with our travel today? I hope not. I figure, one, we're leaving early enough in the morning that won't encounter much holiday traffic. Two, I figure this snow will quickly turn to rain as we drive south. Indeed, traffic maps show that the drive to BWI airport is still expected to take just 90 minutes. And three, the airport is far enough south that it would be out of this band of snow.



South of Harrisburg it's still snowing. It's freaky how big the snowflakes are. I think that's a consequence of the temperature being just near freezing. It's only about 34° F (1° C) outside. Snow is just barely sticking to the grass and the margins of the road. In the traffic lanes it's melting immediately. Still, it's good we've left early when traffic is light. If we had to contend with holiday traffic in this weather it could quickly turn into a mess.

Update: The snow tapered off by the time we reach York, as I expected, but then it came back as a mix of snow and freezing rain as we crossed into Maryland. Thankfully it's just rain at BWI airport. Our inbound aircraft is coming from Florida and is tracking on time, and weather to the west (where we'll fly) looks fairly clear.

Inlaws' Anniversary Trip Journal #7
IAD Airport - Tue, 12 Nov 2024, 2:05pm

We're in the process of heading home from our impromptu 5 day trip to visit Hawk's parents in Pennsylvania. We've driven 110-ish miles to Dulles (IAD) airport outside Washington, DC. From here we're flying back to San Jose with a connection in Phoenix.

Here are Five Things about this day of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles:

1) Yes, it really is Planes, Trains, and Automobiles; we're traveling via all 3 today. We've just driven two hours by car, we took a train at the airport to get from the terminal to our concourse— okay, it was more like a tram, but it still counts because it was on rails— and, of course, we're flying 2,500 miles.

2) We drove 110 miles to IAD airport instead of flying from a closer airport because it's still more convenient. Harrisburg's airport, MDT, has even less service than it used to. For example, United cut its flights between MDT and its worldwide hub in Chicago! Now one has to go through its other worldwide hub, IAH, or maybe EWR (Newark) to get there. At IAD we were able to get a Southwest flight with reasonable timings back to San Jose. And because it's Southwest, it's much cheaper for us. Yay, Companion Pass!

3) 250 miles at 94 cents per mile. That's what our rental car cost, $0.94/mile. That includes both the rental price and refilling the gas tank. We drove 250 miles this trip, almost all of that on getting to my inlaws' house and back. I'm always curious to compare what it costs to rent a car on a trip vs. Uber,/Lyft it. Those services run $1.50 ~ $2 a mile on shorter trips... and would likely be prohibitively expensive for longer trips such as the 110+ miles each way between their house and the DC-area airports.

4) We're got to our gate 1h40m before departure because planning. Yeah, it seems like wasted time to be here that early. It'd be more efficient to arrive 45 minutes earlier instead of 100. But this was a matter of planning. In planning our drive down from Harrisburg we allowed for:

• The possibility of bad traffic somewhere along the way.
• The possibility of stopping for lunch taking longer than expected.
• The possibility of airport security (or really anything else at the airport that can go wrong) taking longer than expected.

On a travel day any one, two, or all three of these can happen. Today none of them occurred. We enjoyed smooth sailing all the way. So now we get to cool our heels in the waiting area. If we had lounge access it would be nice to sit in the lounge and enjoy a couple of free G+Ts, but as it's only just after 2pm it seems too early for booze.

5) We turn around and do it again in 10½ days. Yes, we considered the value of making this trip now given that we're going to be back out here in less than 2 weeks. We decided it was worth it. And Hawk's parents were beside themselves with joy that we came out just for their 60th anniversary.

Thanksgiving Travelog #9
Camp Hill, PA - Wed, 22 Nov 2023. 11pm.

Wednesday afternoon/evening it was time to switch families for our Thanksgiving family visit. That meant switching locales. We left from my sister's house in northern Virginia in the late afternoon to drive to my inlaws' house outside Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

From years in the past I remember day-before-Thanksgiving, aka Thanksgiving Eve, road trips being brutal. Traffic was awful all up and down the major arteries. The past few years, at least, it hasn't been so bad. For example, in 2021 our Thanksgiving Eve drive was smooth sailing— even from downtown Washington, D.C.

...Okay, but in 2021 that could have been lingering reduction in traffic from the pandemic era. Well, this year record holiday travel is forecast, particularly for people driving places. What did that mean for us?

Our Thanksgiving Eve trip was not totally smooth sailing but it was still pretty easy. Traffic maps showed us the usual driving route up to Harrisburg, sticking to major highways the whole way, had slowdowns in a few areas. A backroads route around the outskirts of the DC area was faster by about 15 minutes. Of course, even that "backroads" route involved a few 6-lane highways. I still think of them as backroads because years ago they were all narrow 2-lanes... with traffic backed up for miles at commute times. What a difference better roads make.

Today is the long road home as we travel from Harrisburg, PA to Sunnyvale, CA. This morning at my inlaws' house just outside Harrisburg we awoke to a dusting of snow!



Snow is uncommon this time of year in this area. Just 100 miles north it's more common. When I attended college about 200 miles north of here we'd get the first snow of the season looking like this by the end of September!

This also reminded me how long it's been since I've stepped in snow. It doesn't snow at all at my house; the forecast today has a high of 70! So experiencing snow is something I have to travel for. And with travel reduced the past 21 months because... well, you know why... the last time I set foot in snow was 2½ years ago— ironically on the second day of summer while hiking in the Grouse Lakes Basin.



To be fair I didn't actually step in/on snow here. The pre-dawn lows only barely hit freezing, so snow melted right away on the sidewalk and driveway. There was a fun coating atop our car at 8am, as you can see above.

Right now were at Washington National Airport (DCA) awaiting the first leg of our flight home. The drive down here from Harrisburg was easy, 120 miles in 2 hours. We allowed extra time in our schedule in case there was traffic in the morning. The downside of not needing that that extra time for the drive is that we have to spend it waiting in the airport terminal. Our flight doesn't depart until 12:50, by which point we'll have been here almost 3 hours.