February 17th: The beginning of any of my trips includes a period of worry about the car. I have to do this every time. I have a basic mistrust of machinery at the start of any function. My concerns all have to do with the shift from a stationary, static existence to a thing in motion and running with many moving parts that are being stressed beyond normal, as well as being outside the safe envelope of home where I have control and friends aplenty to come to my rescue.
Leaving town in the SAAB is like leaving the earth’s orbit and heading toward the moon. Any new sound will freak me out and cause muscles to tense and senses to hyper-sense. This behavior came on to me again during the first leg of this trip. First of all I left town during a cold spell and icy road conditions. Maine was freezing and there were a few patches of ice along the way that caused me to break out in a sweat. My concerns were based on having to change the studded snow tires for regular highway tires. I’m used to experiencing the tires hold their track and grip on curves and during braking. The highway tires do not provide that firm sense of control. My trip to Mt. Kisko was really no problem once I got on the interstate system. The big roads were clean and dry.
My stop in Mt. Kisko was brief. I had arranged to get there as my friend Kendall and her husband arrived home to avoid stressing their dogs. As it turned out Jason was home for there was no school due to snow where he is a history teacher. Jason met me at the door and the dogs were calm and almost giddy with my arrival. We had a chance to visit before Kendall arrived home from work at NYU. Jason is correcting papers and grousing a bit about school being cancelled for snow reasons. The weather report for tomorrow is for more snow. I hope I’m out of here before it arrives. Kendall arrives home carrying a pizza we had ordered. Such a Pizza!. Good eating and conversation the rest of the evening. Early to bed for all of for it is a work day tomorrow. In the morning I am awakened by Kendall announcing the snow is coming down fast and what do I want to do? I leap from the bed and shower, dress, pack, and leave in a cloud of wet snow that is already several inches deep on everything. The roads are treacherous and my tires are barely holding on as I slide along the two-lanes toward the Tappanzee Bridge and New Jersey. Once out of Westchester County I am on better footing even though the snow continues to fall.
I reach the Jersey Turnpike and the travel is more to my liking although the traffic is moving very quickly over wet and sometimes snow covered road surfaces. I finally get into a groove of driving fast in the left hand lanes and things are going smoothly. A while later, as we near the lower half of the turnpike, I hear a “pop” and the car makes a fluttering sound. I have blown a tire and begin maneuvering toward the right hand side of the turnpike to pull off the roadway. I make it over to the side and find that there is a large berm of snow lining the Jersey barriers that form the edge of the road. I pull to a stop as far to the right as possible and discover I have barely enough room to open my door to get out for an inspection of the vehicle. Soon enough I discover the tire and get back in the car to call for help. It arrives in about 45 minutes. Adam is the driver of the tow vehicle. A young man with a family there in New Jersey. He is nervous about being on the Turnpike and we are both relieved to have the SAAB on the truck and heading for Treat’s Garage in Windsor to effect the repair to the wheel.
I am back on the road within a few hours of blowing the tire. I have a receipt for $229.83 which I will need to submit to USAA for reimbursement. My trip continues and I finally reach the warmer climes of Wilmington, Delaware. I slow down my pace to match my mood. I am feeling relaxed with the successful recovery from the blowout in New Jersey and with the arrival of sunshine and warmer temps. I take a while to travel to Virginia, stopping to look and feel the emerging Southland. I am comfortable in this neck of the woods. I have traveled this road many, many times in the past 55 years. My first trip along the Delmarva Peninsula was in 1958 as I took a bus from Boston to Norfolk to report for my first duty, after boot camp and ‘A’ school, on the USS Orion, a submarine tender. I have traveled this road as a hitchhiker and as a passenger and as a driver often.
I dilly dally along Rt 13 all day. I have been using my GPS on the Samsung phone and learning more and more how to find businesses along the way. I have been eating herbal popcorn from a large container that I’ve placed on the seat next to me and staying hydrated with bottled water and clementines. Somewhere along the way I get a Jones for salt and grease so I begin looking for a fried chicken place. Specifically, I want a Popeyes. I find one using the GPS but it is on the other side of the peninsula. I don’t care, I just follow the directions and arrive in Salisbury, Md for a great feed. The day is beginning to fade by the time I leave the restaurant and I sense I will need to hurry to reach Virginia Beach before it really gets too late to find a place to stay. By the time I begin my approach to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel I’m already convinced I need to stop for a nap. The chicken dinner is making me un-alert and I need to pull off the road for a bit. As it turns out the bridge-tunnel is within striking distance so I make a dash for it knowing there is a place to rest just this side of it. The bridge-tunnel is 18 miles long and I won’t be able to complete this leg without major drowziness.
I spend the night in the rest area napping. I get about 3 hours of broken sleep time and by 3 A.M. on the 18th of February I decide to complete the trip to Virginia Beach and see what I can find on the other end of the bridge-tunnel.
Playing Fair and Being Kind 