I went to NY on Saturday and made the trip in 6 hours. With pee breaks!

I have to digress to tell this story. I stopped at a rest area, was doing my business when I heard someone enter the bathroom. A loud, thank goodness female, voice booms out “Do you have any car snacks you want to trade? I’m bored with what we have!” Well, I wanted to be polite so I yelled back, “I’m almost out but I’ll share what i have!” I came out of the stall to face a woman who looked like she was totally astonished. I said, “I have some cheese sticks and that’s about all but I’ll share!” She said, very sternly, “I thought my children were in here!” I paused, then said, “So does this mean you DON’T want to share snacks?” She glared. Okay then. I was stuck with my cheese sticks and too bad for her!

Back to the point. I listened to a book I picked up for $1 at the library used book sale – 10 CD’s for $1, I figured I couldn’t go wrong! It’s called The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – highly recommend, it was very interesting and kept me awake and not crying all the way there. And all the way back.

All the way back, there was more need for a distraction. There was little crying, and a great deal of cursing. I didn’t think about road construction and leaf peepers and commuters when I planned this trip. I didn’t think about anything, really, except that i had to be there. I hit the first delay around Walden. This was not unexpected, it’s close enough to NYC and it was early enough in the morning that commuter traffic mixed with some construction made for annoying delays. Average speed of 25 mph when we’d been going 70 (hush) wasn’t fun.

Then it was fine till Scranton. Lanes closed. People, lanes closed ahead means “get the fuck over NOW!” As always, people waited till the last minute and then tried to bully in – not havin that shit here, I don’t care how big you are. I did almost get run over by an 18 wheeler but I called him a few names. (See previous comment about swearing)

So I got through that and thought it would be good for awhile. No. Hazelton. Yes, just about 35 miles from Scranton, again with the lane closures. As one of my former students would say, “fuck me sideways.” This one was worse than Scranton. I had packed my cooler that morning with my sandwiches (in a plastic container thingie from the grocery, they sell two for like $4) at the bottom – not awake, don’t judge – sodas on top and snacks on top of that. (Still cheese sticks and Hershey bars and some chips) During the Hazelton mess, I picked up the cooler from the floor of the front seat, opened it, unpacked it to get to my sandwhich, repacked it, and proceeded to eat my lunch. All without the car moving more than a few feet.

And then we got to Harrisburg. Harrisburg is always a cluster. The good thing is that the route numbers are actually painted on the highway. The bad thing is that you really need to know which lane you need to be in because few will let you over. And at this point, my GPS decided it would be far better to put me in the Susquehanna than put me in the correct lane. Big trucks make it impossible to see too far ahead. However, there was little problem with that part, I’ve driven this enough times to know where to get over to the left and where to stay to the right. However, all the freakin way from Harrisburg till I got off 83, it was traffic and one lane and barely moving.

It took me 6 hours to go up. It took me 7.5 to get home.

Don’t drive on a Tuesday.