We planned our trip to bypass New York City because we will be there later in the year but it was such an amazing site to see the city in the distance as we headed for the George Washington Bridge.
What is amazing about this drive is that we’ve done it once before. 12 years ago my friend Jamie Loveless was getting married in Connecticut and Sandra and I were still in college and were only dating. We drove from Jacksonville up 95 to go to his wedding and this stretch of 95 was the most stressful because we hit it at rush hour on a weekday in my Grandmother’s yellow Cadillac and we just knew we were going to get hit. Not to mention we were terrified of the possibility of having to pull over in Harlem to wait for a police report.
How funny is it that since then Sandra lived in New York City, has been back many times to visit, has ridden a bicycle through Harlem and we are headed back to the city again a few weeks after this trip is over. You are always afraid of things you have never done until you either give it a try or outgrow your childish fears of things you don’t understand.
And this trip through that same stretch of 95 that we drove so long ago was a breeze and we couldn’t help but start talking about what we wanted to do on our upcoming trip.
But that’s when we hit more traffic. Where do all of these people come from and where the hell are they all going? It seemed that everyone, and I mean EVERYONE in New England was on our stretch of road for the rest of the trip. Suddenly 4 hours into our 4.5 hour trip the GPS was saying we had 2 hours more to go. It continued to say that as we drove at about 35 mph for what felt like days.
We called our campground at one point to make sure we could check in late and they said the office was open 24 hours. THey also said the 700+ campsites were all booked for the night! Seven Hundred Plus Camp Sites! Holy Crap!
Now our only deadline was setting up our tent before it got dark… if we could just get to the campground. We pulled into our campsite at 8:00 p.m. and quickly set up our (still damp) tent. Hopefully a night of no rain will dry it out.
