This
Thanksgiving, Dor and I made a strategic decision to drive to Cincinnati to
visit her family vs. flying to and from.
We have actually never taken a “road trip” as the farthest we’ve ever
driven is our New Years Eve houses in the Poconos or Hunter Mountain. Given my proclivity for speeding, I figured I
would tackle the vast majority of the driving and try to beat the 10 hour
mark. (No cliffhangers here: Success!)
Here’s
a quick recap of the drive itself, which actually wasn’t too bad at all. There were only a few rules for the
trip. 1. A quota of 2 pit stops going in
each direction (and we actually only made 1 per) and 2. We have to leave early.
Therefore,
we were up at 4am on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving to get out of NJ
and past Philly before the morning rush hour even started. This wound up being a good idea as the
weather was miserable. Outside of two
minor hydroplaning episodes on the NJ Turnpike, we were out of NJ and into PA
in no time, passing through Valley Forge by 6:30-7am.
We
were on cruise control until about 8:30am and I have a theory as to why we
wound up hitting a bit of traffic for the next hour. During this time, it is my belief that you
have all of the stragglers waiting until the last minute to get to their
respective employers. These people
largely pay no attention to the art of driving and are on the phone, eating
breakfast, and/or putting on makeup instead of … you know … driving.
About
5 hours into the trip, we finally made our first pit stop. Ten minutes eating, two minutes in the
bathroom, and ten minutes refilling the gas tank (just as scripted) and we were
back on the road. I very vaguely
remember driving through the PA Turnpike and the Mountain Tunnels (Blue
Mountain, Kittatinny, and Tuscarora) as a child. This was actually one of the highlights of
the drive and if I wasn’t driving another 4-5 hours, likely would have stopped
to take some pictures and enjoyed the scenery a bit more. Next time … maybe. (Here’s some additional reading for the
history buffs: http://www.pahighways.com/toll/PATurnpike.html )
In
looking up the route, it never dawned on me that we would be driving through a
small section of West Virginia. Any time
you mention West Virginia to me, I immediately think of two things: 1. The
terrible movie “Wrong Turn” (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0295700/)
and how they portray the locals in this movie and 2. John Denver. It never fails and now that song is in your
head, isn’t it? Admit it. “Country Roads … Take me home … To the place,
I belong!! …”
A few
hours into Ohio and we finally hit a patch of traffic around Columbus. This is/was the final leg of the trip,
another 90 minutes or so to go and we were in no mood for traffic. Driving in Ohio is infuriating because they
don’t have a “keep right except to pass” law or, if they do, no one in the
state follows it. You have trucks, the
elderly, and any other profiling demographic that you would put under the “bad
driver” umbrella in the left lane. You
have no idea how incredibly annoying this is until you experience it
yourself.
We
arrived at Dor’s parents house shortly after 2:30pm, after stopping at
Chick-fil-A (of course). So with one
stop, we would have been door to door in 9.5 hours. Not bad at all. You may notice that there are virtually no
comments about things discussed while driving 9.5 hours with someone, games
that we played, arguing over driving or directions, etc. Why?
Out of those 9.5 hours, Dorothy slept about 7 of them. Yep, the co-pilot was fast asleep for 73.7%
of the drive.
The
trip back east was done in a vastly similar timeframe, also included only one
pit stop, and Dor managed to sleep the majority of the drive as well. Good times!
In
case we ever decide to drive again, any recommendations for good stopping
grounds? Where can we stop around the
mountains for good pictures? Good pit
stops off the highway?
