We are off again.
You know the saying, when life hands you lemons? Rachel injured her eye last Thursday and it
got worse until Saturday when we had to call the eye Dr. She gave Rachel some advice and said to come
in on Monday. Rachel was supposed to
work on Monday but her eye was bothering her so much that she was compliant and
if that was not enough, working Sunday convinced her that she had to take the
day off even if it was not on the Dr’s advice.
We got her in to see the Dr. yesterday first thing yesterday and it
turns out it was nothing serious and that it is nearly healed so we left early
since her eye could rest in the car or at home.
I still can’t believe it but it took Rachel telling me that
we could leave a little early Monday morning to realize it even though I could
have put things together as early as Saturday afternoon, duh… Had I realized it sooner, I would have spent
less time monkeying with our new GPS Mom and Dad got us as a combined
birthday/anniversary gift and more time prepping to leave because we could have
left as early as 9:30 or 10. Thankfully
I had done a lot of packing already but I still had a few hours of stuff that
needed to be done before we could leave so we wound up leaving the area at
about 12:30 or 1 and viola, we had lemon-aid eve if I was a little slow to
recognize it.
The trip went pretty smooth up until New York when the GPS
said to keep right and I exited right in the rat’s nest they call a street
system. There is a distinction I know
but OMG there were four choices and cars were coming and going faster than on
old mixing bowl and I did not have time to study the GPS before I had to make
the choice which immediately tacked 15 minutes onto our trip time according to
the GPS which was an underestimate. I
had to exercise what driving skill I have to step-up to the New Yorkers’ confidence
which boarders on aggression. The trick
seemed to be that you have to just go where you want while keeping your head on
a swivel watching for someone who is not stopping for you.
If New Yorkers showed me the meaning of aggression the
Connecticutites showed me the meaning of haste.
When we left VA it was really frustrating that so many on the highway
were content to not even meet the speed limit but that was not an issue in
CT. After correcting the error we hit a
parkway that where I think I saw the CT governor personally standing on the
side of the road and bolting accelerators to the floorboards. Shortly after we left the city we were up to
75 miles per hour and stayed about there for LONG ways, regardless of what the
posted limit was. If you are thinking
that 75 is not that fast for a highway, we were on something somewhat like
Rockcreek Pkwy and the speed limit varied from 55 down to 40. 40?!?!, that is go to jail fast however
everyone, I really do mean everyone, was going no slower than 65. Glad I was not the tortoise in that
situation…
Remember how I mentioned that I spent a lot time figuring
out our new GPS on Sunday, you may have wondered what there was to figure out,
you just tell it where you want to go and then it navigates you there… I discovered a whole community of GPS fans
that collect something called POIs (points of interest). A POI file is a collection of points of
interest on a common topic. We put POI
files on there for camp sites, key NPS scenic areas and one for the Triple D
show (Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.) This
enabled us to punch one button on our GPS and see the distance and direction to
all the Triple D sites in the area and gave us the contact info as well as what
food was featured on the show, how cool is that!
So we picked a place and then promptly learned that you have
to use the phone number or web-site they give you to figure out if they are
open. Super Weenie was not which was a
disappointment. We actually ate at place
called Merritt Canteen, Connecticut and it was great. I had a
chili dog with a little more sauerkraut than I would usually take but that is
easy to set aside while Rachel had the crab cakes. We split a large clam chowder and I got deep
fried brownie bites. The clam chowder
was surprisingly sweet, certainly home-made and really enjoyable and was
Rachel’s favorite part of the meal while mine was the deep fried brownie
bites. The deep fried brownie bites were
so good that it is worth saying their whole name every time. In fact, they were so crispy on the outside and
sweat and gooey on the inside I suspect they may have discovered real Care
Bears and started farming them for their meat.
The rest of the trip was pretty smooth though I may be
receiving a very expensive portrait of Rachel and I in the mail from CT when I
cut across an area that specifically said you could not cut across. I am normally the kind of driver who does not
do things that are that blatant however traffic came to a standstill however
the HOV 2 lanes were wide open. Yeah, I
know I am only justifying bad behavior, but I figure it saved us at least 30
minutes, perhaps up to an hour and it got us to the Hilton Rachel booked us (
70 dollar night normally 219) through Priceline on the road about 9:30.
Today, I am looking forward to going to the Sam Adam’s brew
tour at 10 (yeah I know it is early to drink, no excuses) and then we are off
to see the swan boats, eat some pizza Rachel thinks will make me flip, see the
Mapparium to go inside a giant illuminated glass globe and eat a cheap lobster
dinner at another place Rachel found.
Hopefully we are done soon enough that was can make it a bit north of
the city and find a decent camp site before it gets too dark…
