Monday, November 30, 2009

11-30-09: Long Long Drive

Yesterday was a long day of driving. It began at 5:00AM for me, waking up before I needed to. My mother and I left the house (in Southport, NC) at about 6:45AM. Our destination: Chatham, NJ. Total driving distance: 762 miles, which was the long way. We sought to avoid the heavy DC traffic (which did turn out to be quite awful), and ended up taking I-64 north of Richmond to I-81 and headed up through West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. Including stops, it took us about 13 hours. Not too bad overall, considering we hit a couple spots of traffic near Harrisburg and Allentown. I drove from Southport to Richmond, and my mother drove the second, and longer, leg to New Jersey.

My favorite part of the trip was the drive through the scenic Shenandoah Valley in northwestern Virginia and West Virginia. It was a lovely drive, with some awesome views. The other fun part was the goofy town names. Here were my favorites:

Goochland, Virginia

Kutztown, Pennsylvania

Micro, North Carolina

Krumsville, Pennsylvania (same sign as Kutztown)


The second part of my trip was the relative chip shot from Chatham, NJ to my apartment in Derby, CT. Instead of following my mother's directions to go back up I-287 to the Tappan Zee Bridge, I followed my GPS and took I-95 through the city, driving over the George Washington Bridge. Fortunately, traffic wasn't TOO bad, and I made it back in relatively good time. Long day in a car. Total distance traveled: 861 miles. Total time on the road: 15 hours.

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