The Right Stuff

It has been six months since I visited my grandchildren in New York.  I try to visit once every six months, especially when my grandson Sam pointed out it had been three years since I saw them.

Oh, the guilt.  But moving to Texas and staying for seven years, and my oldest son moving the family from New York to Pennsylvania complicated matters.

Now, we are in Myrtle Beach, and my three oldest children are in (and back in) New York, within visiting distance of some 800 miles.

My sons Chris and Mark want to buy me a plane ticket, but I am a driver.

Airline travel annoys me.  In addition to someone on each end having to give up part of two days to drive me to and from the airport, the terrorists have reduced us all to potential criminals. 

I remove my belt and shoes and empty my pockets for all to see.  I have to make sure I wear socks without holes in them.  And passing through the electronic gate is always a tense experience, lest something trigger the alarm.  And then there is the random suitcase examination where they rummage around looking for contraband.

Don’t get me wrong.  The alternative of hijacking or explosion while airborne makes me see the necessity of it all, but it is annoying nonetheless. 

Then there is the task of having to carefully weigh my baggage to avoid an overweight charge or checking a second bag for an additional fee. 

Once on the plane, I noticed in recent years the space between rows has narrowed to where my knees are jammed against the seat in front.  It’s very uncomfortable for a 6-foot 4-inch person like me.  I have developed a technique of jamming my knees a little more against the seat in front of me to prevent the occupant from reclining and killing me. 

For this demeaning experience, I pay about twenty cents a mile.  Now I hear they are charging extra (or about to) for seats other than the middle ones, flying on days close to holidays, soda, pillows and blankets.

And of course it’s a federal offense to disobey a flight attendant for any reason, even if they want you to do something completely unnecessary.  If the captain decides it is too rough, he can sentence you to your seat, regardless of how your kidneys complain. 

I also like to have a car at the end of my trip to visit friends and family other than the ones I came to visit.  Renting a car at the end jacks the price up to nearly forty cents per mile. 

So, for about ten cents per mile, I don’t have to weigh my bag (or limit the number of bags) or empty my pockets.  I don’t have to remove my shoes and belt and have my luggage searched.  I can bring my own refreshments and blanket for a rest stop, and my car’s seats are comfortable for my legs.

There is no electronic portal, and no restriction on when you make a bio-stop.  And I have a car at the end of my trip.  

My road trip wound its way up via I-95 through Washington D.C. and Baltimore, that along with New York, are the traffic capitals of the east.  The trip mapped out at 15 hours driving time, which means I can add an hour and a half for rest and gas stops. 

I started out at 5:30am.  The hardest part seems to be getting out of Myrtle Beach.  There is no Interstate and the first sixty miles to I-95 takes more than an hour and a half. 

Once on I-95, I caught up with the rainy low front that had been over Myrtle Beach until the day before.  And so it began – my trip from hell. 

The rain intensified so that at 50 mph I could not see the car in front of me.  Two faint rosy lights were taillights.  Then the wind started, gust blowing sideways to the road so it was difficult staying in lane.  Tractor-trailers were doing the snake dance.  You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a 40-ton vehicle coming at the side of your car. 

That kept up for the next 400 miles before the rain let up.  At 4pm I called home to report that after eleven hours I had not reached Washington, D.C., normally reached in seven hours.  I was averaging 35 miles per hour.

Along the way I stopped a lot more often than normal.  I would normally stop three times in 400 miles, but with the stressful weather driving I was stopping every hour. 

By now, rush hour was in full swing in Washington.  The town evidently had a lot of shovel-ready road projects, because they worked and closed lanes even in rush hour.  And there were a lot of accidents, the worst of which had four ambulances present. 

With instructions from my GPS, I headed up the west side of the Capital Beltway and up I-270.  The traffic started to slow and then stopped.  I could see ahead about three miles and there were only red taillights – no emergency lights in sight.  I sat there, virtually motionless for two hours.  Then I gave up and punched the detour button on the GPS. 

My only detour route was to return on I-270 to the Capital Beltway, take it east, then I-95 north to Baltimore.  On the 17-mile way back, cars were solidly stopped which meant they were facing twenty miles of stopped traffic ahead. 

When I finally made it to I-95 north, I saw a lot of cars I recognized from I-270.  I guess I wasn’t the only one that bailed.  By the time I cleared Washington, I had been in the city for another three hours.  I had now been on the road for 14 hours. 

The rest of the trip was relatively uneventful, although long.  Seven hours later I entered my son’s street on Long Island.  I had been on the road for 21 hours. 

One last humorous event.  I was bleary-eyed and forgot my son’s house was on the second block.  I saw a house that looked like his and parked in front.  Hmm … they’ve both changed their cars. 

I climbed the steps and was about to open the storm door when I looked up at the address plate.  Oops!  Wrong block.  It was now 2:30am.  I could visualize my looking into a shotgun barrel.  I quietly backpedaled, got into my car and drove to the next block.  Close one. 

The family visit was great, and I mapped a new route home, through Pennsylvania, completely skirting Baltimore and Washington.  It adds about 30 miles to the trip but it is all at highway speed and much more pleasurable. 

In addition, by avoiding the I-95 corridor, my $57 in round trip tolls was reduced to $19 (plus 75 cents entering Pennsylvania). Mileage and travel time were about the same as the original plan.  Guess what route I will take in the future.