Book It!

 

The Book is next to me.

No, not that book. Or likely any other one that you're thinking of.

Not my copy of The Baseball Encyclopedia or To Kill a Mockingbird or Susan's poetry book (Skipping Rocks) or The Natural.

This book, in fact, is a small notebook. It has a white cover, with a purple plastic pocket over it that says Empire City Casino. The pocket is there, no doubt, to carry some kind of documents related to betting on horse racing and anything else.

There's an elastic pen loop included and I utilize that as well.

To me, it's a notebook. And, yet, more.

It's become a driving log.

The first page dates back to 2015. It says so in red marker in my handwriting. It was Aug 18, 2015, when we drove away from Mahopac (at 5:42 a.m. I might add) en route to North Carolina.

Oh, but first came breakfast and we left the deli at 5:54. No doubt I was grumbling about it being so close to 6 a.m. and not being on the road but at least I had a trusty egg and cheese in my hand and a hot cup of coffee -- yes, even on a mid-August morning.

By 8:36 that morning, we were crossing the Delaware Memorial Bridge.

The book tells me that we stopped at Wawa in Delaware and that I took U.S. 13 down the Delmarva Peninsula to cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.

We arrived there at 12:48, seven hours and six minutes after beginning our journey. We had traveled 373.2 miles.

We'd reach Fayetteville, NC at 7:07 that night -- late, by my standards. It took 643.6 miles.

The handwriting is often scribbled, as best as I can as the miles go by. It's where I have a moment to take the time to write that my penmanship isn't quite so horrid.

I make notes of things like tolls at that time and, as the years go by, start noting the time we leave the main road (OFF) and depart whatever break we have taken (ON).

That allows me to compute the "True Driving Time" in which I add up the break times, subtract them from the total time on the road, and figure out what I think would have been our length of travel minus breaks. A perfect system? Hardly. One has to stop for restrooms and fuel eventually at the very least but this occupies my mind.

Later on, I discovered that I must have written the details of our 2014 trip to North Carolina somewhere else. Ever the completist, I wrote those notes into the book, following our second drive to NC in 2017.

Yes, second drive. The first one was to help my niece and her family move in late March (long drive, terrible rain and traffic). The second drive was to help around her house when she had surgery a few weeks later.

As the trips and numbers mounted, I began to wonder about which was best. Were there any ways to improve things? Look, sometimes it can't be helped. Driving down the Delmarva in 2015 was a decision and was out of the way of the better route. We did that for fun, including showing Sean what it was like to drive over -- and then under -- Chesapeake Bay.

It is a sublime experience, capped by the (now closed) pier where fisherman did their thing and tourists stretched and bought goodies from the snack bar and gift shop.

Sean and I will likely wind up on the CBBT at the back end of our upcoming trip but without the shop, it simply won't be the same. The reason for the closure is logical, as the CBBT is building the parallel Thimble Shoal tunnel. That's progress, I suppose.

The nearly-perfect drive to North Carolina was in 2018. It was, shockingly, right before Labor Day, and we crushed the roads.

Out at 5:16 a.m. and leaving the deli at 5:30 (that's better!) we hit the road and did not stop until we were almost in Baltimore. At 3:25, we took a break in Joppa, MD at Wawa.

Baltimore, in my mind, has always been a four-hour drive. To be near there in 3:25 was great.

We wouldn't stop again until just south of Petersburg, VA. 

We were in my niece's front yard at 3:29 p.m. Minus breaks, just a hair over nine hours.

Love it.

Other trips aren't so kind. We would get tired and need multiple breaks and, of course, construction near Washington, D.C. is constant and there are all kinds of other congestion that just grind a summer drive to a halt.

Try coming through Virginia on a summer Sunday. I've made that mistake and, as a result, either run for my life or get creative. Like jumping off 95 near Fredericksburg (you might know that's the home of the Babe Ruth 14U World Series) and using U.S. 17 to some other combination.

I've veered towards Gettysburg, PA a few times along U.S. 15.

And then there's U.S. 301 through Maryland. Ah, but traffic lights. And too many of them.

You can probably see how I view all of this like a sport. There's strategy involved.

No wonder I love it.

The struggle for me is to make sure I enjoy it all. Too many times I've been so focused on miles down the road and have literally said to myself, "Stay in the moment. Relax!"

The Book grew out of my love of noting my drives to and from Richmond, VA when I started visiting there in the 90s. Again, I'd write notes or even record notes into a micro cassette recorder.

There are notes in The Book from our 2020 (COVID!) trip to Albany for my niece's wedding. That, sadly, was Mom's last trip.

Tomorrow, The Book will be next to me in the driver's seat, prepared to take whatever dictation I have to add.

I'll probably note crossing the Hudson River and arriving in Binghamton and things like that.

But, as we prepare to leave for our adventure, I'm again astounded as I try to find a deli open before 6 a.m. to make us a couple of egg and cheese sandwiches. The only places I can think of would mean going out of the way.

Or Dunkin Donuts.

Let's face it, I'm mostly about making time.

And The Book shall guide me.