Yankee Doodle Road Trip

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I was at least able to get to sleep last night when I lay down; but, I awoke too many hours early and had to struggle to get back to sleep. I am not going to miss this bed as it seems much too stiff to suit me. We had planned to leave about 9:30 for our nearly 5-hour trip to Boston; but, in the end we were ready to get on the road after finishing the simple buffet breakfast and left just after 8. I had some scrambled and the one remaining over-fried egg with sausage. Sharon stuck with her dry cereal. Sharon reminded me that that was one more thing that she had in common with my cousins. I can still hear Beth saying, “The way she eats, she’s more related to us than you are.” I told her I can’t imagine anyone eating cereal dry. I would think the milk would help them go down. Beth had just shivered, “Ooh!” at the suggestion cereal should have milk poured on it. “It would make it so soggy.” I thought that was the point. Bill’s wife also preferred cereal dry; but, then added, sometimes she did have orange juice poured over it. She didn’t get any takers on that one.

“Before we get started, we have to do something about that,” Sharon insisted, pointing at the 2:35 time on the center console. At first glance it was clear that there were no handy hour/minute controls. After stumbling through a couple of setup menus, she came across the one for the clock, and it soon was correct. “Now, if we can just plug in my iPod…” I told her that we needed to find the “AUX” control, she had the cable from her headphones already attached to plug into the car’s audio input. A couple more menus, and she had that under control too. We took the New Jersey Turnpike north towards New York City. My phone’s GPS was guiding the way. As we approached the final New Jersey rest spot over one hour into our journey, Sharon suggested that we take a break. Having only nibbled at breakfast, we opted for Burger King, an egg croissant for me and French Toast sticks for Sharon.

I’m still getting used to all of the electronics Nissan has put into this Altima. Some are self-intuitive, like the cruise control, and seat controls. I was happy that the steering wheel was adjustable, because when I first got in the car, well, I couldn’t. Someone had the steering wheel adjusted all the way down. I had to feel around to find that control; but, that wasn’t too bad either. But while driving on the Turnpike I thought that I heard a slight change in the engine noise. Actually, what surprised me, up until that point I don’t recall ever hearing the engine, the car was that quiet. But now there seemed to be a high pitched hum. Then I notice it, “Oh Great!” The “O/D OFF” indicator is on (and the “OFF” is illuminated in reverse video). I tell Sharon, “Sharon, we have a problem. The overdrive is OFF.” I check the shifter, but the car is in “D” the way it is supposed to be. Sharon checks for a maintenance manual; but, of course there is none. Sharon reminds me, “Their all online these days.” Of course, I’m cruising along at freeway speeds. I then moved my right leg slightly to the left, and see that my leg had brushed up to a button on the stick shifter. I press the button, and fortunately, it wasn’t the button for Sharon’s ejector seat. The warning indicator went off, and the RPM’s went from 4500 to about 2000. And that engine noise resumed silent operation.

The GPS warned that traffic would worsen approaching the George Washington Bridge. There were multiple places where road work was in progress and an accident. There was a $15 toll due to cross the bridge. Most cars use the EZPass, which also took care of the toll booths in New Jersey. But we needed a “Cash” lane. The approach was a dozen or so lanes wide, and I was in the number 3 lane. Only the far left lane and the two far right lanes were for cash, so I started to merge towards the left which would have led to the wrong direction. “No, no!” Sharon exclaims. “We need to be to the right.” Easier said than done, but I managed to angle far to the right, and to my surprise, most of these New Yorkers (but not all) were probably bemusedly understanding of us in our car with North Carolina plates. I know, under their breath these Yankees were probably thinking “Southerners”. But we made the transition, paid our toll and headed towards the lower level of the bridge. The lanes were a from three to two for most of the bridge, and then to one near the end so it took us about forty-five minutes to cross the bridge. As we left the approach tunnel and found with a view, Aaron Tipton refrain that goes something like “And a lady in a harbor stands for what we believe.” In the distance the New York skyline was evident in the distance. Sharon noted that the “Green Lady” was just around the bend in the river.

The GPS chimed in “Welcome to New York.” I was still getting used to all of the indicators and controls on the car, when an idiot light came on and I didn’t know what this one was. It had a star just above two symmetric curvy lines which I later realized represented the back of one car and the front of another car obviously too close together. It went out by itself, but later came on again. This time I also saw the warning text which only stayed on the speedometer display for a few seconds, and said something like “Front Looking Radar Disabled.” We supposed, maybe something was blocking the sensor; but, after the idiot light went out and stayed out the third time, I didn’t worry about it any more. There were warning lights built into the interior near the base of each side mirror that would illuminate in a pale amber whenever a car was in the blind spot on that side and make a warning sound. And Sharon would keep saying, “What was that?” thinking it came from one of our phones when I would turn on the turn signal, and there was a car several car lengths back on that side.

We weren’t long in New York and soon found ourselves in Connecticut. Driving along all of the green lined roadway certainly was different than our journey a couple of weeks earlier from Las Vegas to Southern California to attend a wedding. We had more roadway delays here and eventually opted to take a lunch break as we wouldn’t be arriving in Boston anytime soon. Sharon got a Dunkin’ Donut’s donut and I got a SubWay wrap.

The GPS let us know again when we entered Massachusetts. We had to switch to Sharon’s phone because my phone died at the rest stop. Our five hour journey to Boston, ended up taking about 8 hours; albeit with stops. The stops were pretty short. We found our hotel and were directed to our room. As our luck would have it, the only elevator that was working was at one end of the hotel, and our room was wrapped around three wings at the opposite end. A hotel maid let us go ahead of her on the elevator with all of our luggage. The suite is quite nice, and no doubt more spacious than our cabin will be. There’s a full kitchen and nice living area. The bedroom is pretty small but has a nice king size bed and a 2^nd tv that will likely save some discussions the next 6 days and the show in the bathroom is very large. Sharon got some things unpacked, and then found Bickford’s Grille for us to try for dinner that wasn’t too far away. I considered trying the Lobster Roll; but, from my Lobster Roll Quest Days I remembered one of the rules: “Don’t be upset about the quality of the lobster roll if you’re paying less than $20.” This one came in at $16. But my Lobster Alfredo was quite good, and if I eat here again, I just might try the lobster roll. Sharon was very happy with her “Made-Today-Fresh-Sliced-Turkey”. She got it without gravy. Sharon got mashed potatoes and carrots, and they were clearly freshly made. The carrots appeared to be baby carrots, whole with the tops snipped off and were perfectly cooked. I got just one side with my Lobster Alfredo and the fresh spinach was excellent.

We stopped by a CVS on the way back to the hotel and stocked up on drinks for the week, and some more phone charging devices. Sharon’s phone charger was overheating in just a couple of minutes yesterday and needed to be discarded. We had four small bags and our bill came to $80, so CVS may not be the best place to buy some of these things… but it was convenient. Back at the hotel we show up at the hotel with our four grocery bags (two bags each) and a hotel service guy is waiting to get on the elevator. When the elevator arrives, he gets on, and there isn’t room for us because of the other service guy already on the elevator. And so, we had to wait a few minutes. Hopefully they’ll get the main elevator working soon.

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