So, New Jersey, why the Hell would
Ted want to go there, anyway? Indeed,
why would anyone? Well, Mr. or Ms.
Superior, my Dad lives there. Well,
here. I’m typing this in New Jersey at
my Dad’s place. I drove down to visit
him over a long weekend. I’m seriously
considering flying next time because it was a pain in the ass to get here. It always is, for me.
He lives in Ocean County. It’s the retirement community capital of the
United States, according to my Dad after chatting with me over some
Scotch. Anyway, he used to live in
Maine, and I settled in Maine after I got out of the regular army, partly to go
to the University of Maine, partly to live closer to him. Then, soon after I graduated from UMaine, he
and my step-mom Janet moved to Nueva Joisey.
They have a condo in a nice, little, politically challenged—perhaps
another post someday—retirement
community. I’ve driven here four
times, and I’ve never made it here in a reasonable amount of time.
Once, I almost went to Scranton,
Pennsylvania. Yes, I almost completely
overshot New Jersey. Apparently, Janet
left a 6 or an 8 off one of the routes when she was giving me directions. Once I drove from Baltimore, where I was
participating in centralized training for the VA. The trip wasn’t that long, but leaving Baltimore at
about 5:30, and hitting traffic in Philadelphia, I got to my dad’s about an
hour or so after stupid Yahoo Maps indicated I would. Whatever.
The last time I drove down with my daughter, Amber, for Dad’s 80th
birthday celebration. Apparently, as I
found out later, the Connecticut State Police had to shoot
someone in the northbound lanes of Interstate 84. All four northbound lanes were closed, and
there was only one southbound lane open.
It was a holiday weekend. Amber
and I got off the highway to eat, but it didn’t make any difference. What should have been an eight-or-nine-hour
drive took about twelve hours. If only I’d
had a GPS to warn me about the traffic!
That’s why I thought this trip
would be different. I have a handy-dandy
GPS, and as I approached Hartford, Connecticut it foretold of the impending jamming
around Hartford and beyond. Would I like
to save time, avoid the traffic, and only add about ten minutes to the ETA? You bet your sweet ass I would. So there I was, barreling down the Merrit
Parkway or whatever the hell it was. I’m
not sure. Part of the convenience of using a GPS is that I don’t have to pay
attention to what road I’m on. All I
have to do is not hit the cars in front of me and follow directions. Anyway, the rest of Connecticut was fine, but
when I got to New York, the trip got pretty interesting.
After a couple more accepted offers
of time-saving, traffic-avoiding bypasses, I was getting off the Henry Hudson
Parkway in Manhattan and driving down Broadway to get to the George Washington
Bridge. In my GPS’ defense, the traffic
on Broadway actually moved. The few
miles from the bridge to the first toll gate on the New Jersey turnpike took a
few hours. The last mile took nearly
two.
But it wasn’t all bad, though. I listened to some music. I exchanged friendly, knowing expressions
with my fellow traffic hostages. I was a
positive force for good, sending out pleasant vibes that said, “We can get
through this, together!” That’s probably
the only reason there weren’t any road rage fatalities that I could see. While sitting in my car, I could also see the
Manhattan skyline, and I didn’t have to worry about watching the road because I
wasn’t moving. I think I saw about 10
floors completed on the new World Trade Center.
America! Fuck yeah!
But it was pretty bad, though. My fuel light came on with about 300 yards and
25 minutes to go before the toll gates.
This is when I started to feel stressed.
There wasn’t anything I could do about the traffic. I was going to get through it, and it was
going to take a long time. Why worry
about that. There wasn’t anything I
could do about the gas situation. I didn’t
know if I could make it to a gas station in time. I had no idea how roadside assistance could
get to me with a couple gallons of gas.
I didn’t want to have the collective honks of all of Northern New Jersey
haunting me forever. All I knew was that
there was gas .6 miles away, beyond the toll gates. That was .6 miles that I might not make. That is one handy GPS feature, and that was
one magnificent sigh of relief when I made it to the service plaza and the gas
pumps.
It was pretty hot for October,
too, 80 degrees according to my dashboard thermometer. Well, it was much hotter than I’ve been used
to at this time of year since I’ve lived in Maine. Perhaps it felt so hot because I had to have
the heat on. Now, the mechanics of it
are beyond my comprehension, but whenever I’m in long-term stop-start traffic like
this, my engine revs really high, 5,000 RPM’s high, while idling. The engine temperature gauge reads normally,
but cranking the heater to pull heat off the engine works, and the tachometer goes
back below 1,000. I opened the windows,
so there was a nice breeze, well, a breeze. While the windows were down, a carful of
college-aged kids asked me if there were any cash only lanes ahead. We could clearly see the flashing lights on
the EZ-Pass lanes, but there was nothing marking the cash lanes. “I hope so,” I said, and we all had a good
laugh.
There weren’t. Well, there were, but I was on the far
left. By the time I realized that I
would have to merge right just to get through one of the toll gates, it was a
struggle, and the truck beside me kept so close behind the next car that I had
a difficult time making it that one lane over, let alone the four lanes to the
next gate where I could get a toll ticket.
“What is happening?” I thought. “Are they just letting people go because
they don’t want to hold this bullshit up anymore?”
Ah, sweet innocence. They weren’t.
When I got to the actual toll booth, the guy asked for my ticket. He also explained how you drive through the toll
gates, and there’s this machine on the side.
It spits out tickets. Then you
give the ticket to the guy at the next plaza, and he’ll tell you how much you
have to pay for the toll. It was $11.80
without the ticket. I didn’t get mad at
the guy. He’s just doing his job, and I’m
too laid-back to get pissy with someone over something stupid. I did, however,
yell, “Suck it!” at the people who were honking at me during my little chat
with the toll guy. I thanked him, wished
him a good night, and I was finally on my way.
I got to my dad’s very late, 9:30,
well past his bed time, but Janet had some soup to warm up for me. Dad and I caught up over the last of his
Scotch. As always, just the time to
catch up with Dad was well worth the trip.
And now, I’m getting ready to order
an EZ-Pass electronic tag.
