You always end up in the van. Sure, you can escape temporarily, head off to some schmantzy-pants conference at the Kennedy Center, but you'll be back. Right where we want you -- firmly planted in the back seat, munching on pretzels, slugging back sodas, halfheartedly engaging in Hour Four of license-plate bingo. That's your personal hour of darkness, right there. That's where you find out what you're made of.
Calvin and Rosalie have been there before, so they know what to expect. The picture at top was taken just before our departure from DC for Rhode Island. I asked them to smile -- that's what they came up with. Rosalie tried to oblige, managing the limp grin that comes with the knowledge that she will be riding in Otto for the next 8 or 9 hours. That grin seems to be saying, "Am I really sure the bus wouldn't have been a better choice?" Calvin, however, was brooking no foolishness. He adopted the grim deathmask of someone resigned to their fate, but sorta ticked off about it. It's the same face you see on parents accompanying their children to a 'Hanson' concert. It has to be done, but that doesn't mean you're going to enjoy it. Just drive, punk. And make it snappy.
When you see that face, you don't ask questions, you don't pat them on the shoulder and say, "buck up, pardner," you just drive. And so we did, pointing Otto north again, heading for what would hopefully be the fairer climes of Rhode Island. We'd been sweating for what seemed to be roughly the same duration as the Pleistocene Age, and we were ready for it to stop. Art and Marge (Lisa's parents) have always promised us that Newport is ten degrees cooler than everyplace else, so we were excited. Real excited.
That excitement lasted until we hit our third hour on the New Jersey turnpike. At that point, we were sure that we would have to pay a toll just to look in the rear-view mirror. Driving on the East Coast is just a wee bit different from the wide open interstates of the West Coast. If they can charge you for it out here, they pretty much will. For a while, Kristanne had me convinced that unseen video cameras were recording our every lane change, for which we would eventually be charged at our departure from the turnpike.
After a few missteps in Trenton, N.J., and Yardley, PA., we defied popular opinion and actually made it into New York. New York City...just like I pictured it. Skyscrapers and everything. I took a picture of the skyline, but unfortunately the digital camera couldn't cut through the smog. Lightning began to crash everywhere, and for the next several hours, the NYC skyline resembled some of the more gothic sets from, "Ghostbusters." We had plenty of time to observe those sets as traffic crawled across the Hudson River and through New York, eventually speeding up to a relatively-speedy 30 miles an hour. I can see why people in NYC try not to have a car.
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We needed food. A conservative estimate pegged us at an average intake of about 67.5 ounces of Diet Coke and three bags of some sort of chip per person. This does not include our consumption of "Gingerboys" and description-defying meat snacks. Needing wholesome food, we quickly ordered and ate a Domino's pizza to get something healthy in our system. Properly nourished, we were ready to sleep so that we might take on the sights of Newport in the morrow. |
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See you next time on the Odyssey!
Total Miles for 7/18 = 427