We're Off!

Greetings from Elkton, Maryland.

OK, maybe not. I started this post at 10:16 Sunday night in Mahopac. But I'm hoping to be sitting in Elkton by sometime Monday night.

Maybe I'll wax poetic about the drive. About the time that I made on the roads out of metro New York City and down the New Jersey Turnpike, where I was counting the cars (they've all come to look for America, said Simon and Garfunkel).

Did I cut through Philly? Did I take 295? Did I stay on the Turnpike? How's Delaware these days?

Will we jump in the pool and grab dinner at the nearby Wawa, or will we hit the Waffle House?

Who knows! I'm still typing away in New York.

*****
OK, now I'm really in Elkton, MD, population 15,652.

It was once "the elopement capital of the East Coast" with the likes of Willie Mays marrying here.

A Pan Am flight also crashed here in 1963.

On the more positive side, gas prices here, and in neighboring Newark (pronounced Noo-ARK) are upwards of 50 cents cheaper than at home.

It's just across the line from Delaware and is the first exit off I-95 in Maryland. But you have to pay a toll, and I wasn't in the mood to do that, so I worked around it.

After three hours and fifty-six minutes of driving, I can be forgiven if I don't want to pay a toll.

It should never take 3:56, but rush hour in New York and New Jersey reared its mighty ugly head and hurt me bad.

Once it settled down, it became more like the drives that I'm used to.

But I'm a roads guy, so forgive me.

I checked something off my list tonight.

Interstate 95 has been a constant ribbon through my life. I have traveled and driven on it through its lower parts in Florida, and from Daytona Beach up to the Philadelphia area...then again from New Jersey to just past Freeport, ME.

There was an incomplete, NIMBY-blocked portion that caused a break until last year. Ninety-five now splits from the New Jersey Turnpike southbound at Exit 6, turns west and crosses into Pennsylvania, before turning south near Bristol, PA.

And I drove the missing link tonight.

To you (well, most of you), it's frivolous. I didn't even mention it to my family when we drove it. But I assure you that it was quite meaningful to me. I just kept my fingers crossed that rush hour wouldn't be a Philly special.

We had no issues at all. Just heavy traffic that kept moving.

We pulled into Elkton, grabbed sandwiches at Wawa, and came to the hotel. We would up with a great two-room suite thanks to the nice person at the front desk.

Then again, she sent us to the wrong room first, then we discovered our actual room is missing a chain for the toilet handle. Like...what?

Anyway, that's travel for ya.

Up early tomorrow to try to survive Baltimore/Washington/Fredericksburg.

This guy misses us already, but he'll be mightily spoiled by others this week who will keep him company.

Time for bed.