Friday, June 24, 2022

The Only Way Out Is Through

We had the van packed and ready to go by 7:15, hoping to thread the traffic needle on I-95 up the Eastern Seaboard. Our interim destination was Andover, MA, a trip that could take a little over seven hours, if we were lucky. That would leave another four and a half or five to get up to MDI tomorrow. 

Josh rode with Emily and Rosie to spell the driving, and Heidi and Lucy and I were right behind them, until the display on our fancy rental van dropped the map app on my phone. We pulled over to the curb and sat reading the manual and troubleshooting for about 20 minutes. 

"F*ck it!" I told Heidi and twisted the knob on the dash board to put the van in drive. "Lets' go." By the time Heidi actually fixed the problem (by turning everything off and on again) we were inching along in stop and go traffic north of Baltimore. Navigation system activated, I took the next exit and bypassed the snarl. 

We made pretty good time until we were about 20 miles south of the GW Bridge on the Jersey Turnpike. Against my better judgment, I had followed the map instead of bailing for the Garden State Parkway and the Tappan Zee Bridge. Soon we were gridlocked by an accident, our route a red line on the display, and the delay time creeping from 10 to 20 to 25 minutes. 

With nothing to do, we texted Josh and Emily, who having narrowly avoided the obstruction were 30 minutes past the bridge. From there, the clock was against us. We entered Connecticut with a glut of other vacationers and commuters leaving early for the weekend. I-84 was delayed for miles, and we decided to gas up and look for a work around. 

Despite the displeasure of our navigation app, we found ourselves making pretty good time through some lovely New England towns. We rolled past village greens, stone walls, churches, one room schoolhouses, and town halls. Eventually, there was nowhere else to go but back on the highway, and although we didn't avoid all the slowdowns, we missed a few of them. 

It was 7:45, twelve and a half hours after our departure when we finally made it to the hotel. Emily and Josh had beat us by an hour or so, but there we were: tired to be sure, but so much closer to Maine.

1 comment:

  1. The title is perfect for the slog up the eastern seaboard. Maine is worth the trouble! (Joanne)

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