Thanksgiving travel rule 2: Never drive the day before Thanksgiving

We woke up in Ashland, Ore., refreshed and ready to hit the road. After enjoying a complimentary breakfast at our hotel, the Best Western Windsor Inn, we left for Portland at 10 a.m. We had promised some friends—Yuko and Jeff and their kids Isao and Tomo—who lived in the city that we'd arrive at their house between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. With Portland being a 5 hour drive from Ashland, we were right on track.

The southern Oregon stretch of I-5 is lovely and scenic. It winds through forests, crosses rivers, and passes through small farm towns: Talent, Hugo, Sunny Valley, Azalea, Riddle. We all thoroughly enjoyed the drive—until we hit Eugene, 100 miles outside of Portland, where the traffic came to a dead stop. I stood up on the car seats and stuck my head through the sunroof, convinced that there must be accident ahead. No, just endless cars inching along the highway. Nearly every other car seemed to have a University of Oregon or Oregon State bumper sticker; we were in the midst of the "going home from college" rush-hour traffic.

My husband, Anthony, and I started to dig into one another.

"Why did you insist on working out at the hotel gym this morning?" I scolded him. "If we left an hour earlier we never would have hit this traffic!"

"Why did you insist on not setting an alarm so we woke up earlier?" he countered.

We pulled off to get some gas. As the attendant was filling our tank, Anthony asked, "Why is there all this traffic? Is this typical?"

The guy reminded us that it was the day before Thanksgiving. "This is the busiest driving day of the year," he said. "There's always lots of traffic."

"How long do you think it will take us to get to Portland?"

"I'm not even going to try to answer that question..."

We stopped arguing, came to terms with our fate, and called our friends to say that we would be late. We also decided that the next time we took a Thanksgiving road-trip we would leave a day earlier.

We finally reached Portland at 6 p.m.--that's three hours later than planned. We arrived at Yuko and Jeff's house in east Portland, tired and stressed. But once we stepped inside their cozy craftsman bungalow, warm from a blaze in the fireplace, we relaxed. They greeted us with hot sake and a Japanese soup filled with fresh fish and vegetables. The kids roasted marshmallows in the fireplace and watched the Nutcracker on TV. And then Yuko played the piano and we all sang holiday songs. Yuko's daughter, Tomo, taught us the lyrics to a song about a turkey named Albuquerque, sung to the tune of "Clementine."

Albuquerque is a turkey
And he's feathered and he's fine
And he wobbles and he gobbles
and he's absolutely mine.
He's the best pet that you can get..
Better than a dog or cat.
He's my Albuquerque turkey
And I'm awfully proud of that.
He once told me, very frankly
he preferred to be my pet,
not the main course at my dinner,
and I told him not to fret.
And my Albuquerque turkey
is so happy in his bed,
'Cause for our Thanksgiving dinner...
We had egg foo yong instead.

Those few hours with our friends were memorable and well worth the drive. This is why we all hop in our cars and on planes over the Thanksgiving holiday. It's to spend time with friends and family.