Is Travel Going to the (Ground) Hogs?

If you're a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, there was just one way to keep the excitement going after last night's big win in the Super Bowl : drive 65 miles northeast of The Steel City to see a guy named Phil. Well, more like a rodent named Phil. Today is Groundhog Day in the U.S. and that means people from all over the world traveled to a tiny town in Pennsylvania called Punxsutawney (population 6,100) and gathered on Gobbler's Knob to see if Punxsutawney Phil, the official Groundhog Day groundhog, would see his shadow.

Sadly, the little lowdown no-good hog saw his shadow, thus predicting we're all in for another six weeks of winter. I know the poor citizens of Kentucky are probably about to put a hit out on ole Phil as we speak.

But little did I know that someone is giving the old hog a run for the money. Meet General Beauregard Lee of Lilburn, Georgia. Affectionately referred to as a varmint in that neck of the woods, "Beau" had a bone to pick with his northern associate. He emerged from a faux antebellum mansion to make his prediction of an early spring, after not seeing his shadow. Need to get a load of this? This Southern gal tracked down some pictures of it.

But this isn't the only way travel is going to the hogs lately. One of the most buzzed about travel articles of last week was not from Conde Nast Traveler or the New York Times or any other of the venerable stalwarts of travel writing...but from a passenger on Virgin airlines. Sure, sure, we've all had a terrible flight with complaints ranging from exorbitant baggage fees to rude airline employees, but this particular passenger was most miffed about the food. In fact, he took pictures of all the dishes served to him from Mumbai to London's Heathrow and picked them apart in his letter one by one, and the results are by turns horrifying and hilarious. In fact, his letter is now gaining traction on the Internet as the world's funniest passenger complaint letter. The Telegraph does confirm that Sir Richard Branson himself called the passenger to apologize.

Here's an old favorite to help you celebrate Groundhog Day.