The accelerating expanding universe

I am finding it difficult to comprehend the concept that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. If the expansion is accelerating today, then presumably this acceleration has been taking place for billions of years.If the divergance of a given galaxy is increasing at a rate of only 1 mile per hour/year, then that galaxy would be travelling away from us at the speed of light within only 700 million years. Clearly this is not happening, so the rate acceleration must be very small indeed. Is it really possible to measure such a microscopic rate of acceleration by observing such a distant object?If any acceleration is taking place, I would expect every other galaxy to be so far away by now that we could not possibly see them. Or....If the llight could reach us, those other galaxies would be diverging at such a colossal speed that I would have thought that the light reaching us from them would no longer be within the visible spectrum.Edited by Hoof Hearted, : No reason given.

I wasn't making that assumption at all. Apart for a few exceptions, the distance between every galaxy and it's neighbors is expanding and accelerating. So the same observation could be made from anywhere.