Driving from NJ to FL

Jan. 8th to 10th 2017

1/8/2017 ... Jersey boys Don’t Make U-Turns!

With our car and a rental SUV, both fully loaded with our boating needs, we left home in Rumson, NJ at 11:00 a.m. on January 8^th. We had planned on making our escape on the 7^th, but a heavily falling snow and predictions of nasty weather south along Route 95 prevented our departure. Instead of driving a car that day, Clark was pushing a snow blower around the driveway. With the snow stopped and the driveway mostly cleared, I hoped for an early start on the 8^th.  I quickly learned that was not to be the case when I realized Clark meant to continue where he left off the day before with snow removal.

After thirty-something years of marriage and living in a snowy state, I know that Clark is basically OCD when it comes to clearing snow from the driveway and sidewalks. I just thought that this once, since we were leaving and would not be seeing or dealing with it, that he could leave that inch or so of snow and just drive away. Hah! He declared that with the low temperatures the remaining snow would freeze and still be in the driveway come spring. Rather than discuss or argue the point, I picked up my shovel to follow along behind the snow blower and clean up the crumbs left behind – my traditional role.

Of course, after we finally finished the driveway and sidewalks, we still had to close down the house by unplugging appliances, turning down the heat and turning off the water. Before leaving the area, I had to make a stop at CVS for a prescription that I could not refill earlier and then we both needed to fill up with gas. Why is it that rental cars are now handed out low on fuel?? It used to be the case that they needed to come back full ready for the next user. Grrr! Finally, after the stop at the pumps, we set off.

Clark decided that even though I was now also a driver, I should continue to be the navigator, so he put me in the lead. He claimed that his rear visibility was too poor to be able to keep track of me if I followed. Well, he should try leading with a black SUV as the following vehicle. At one point I looked in my rear-view mirror and saw no less than six black SUVs. I had yet to figure out any distinctive features on his Nissan Pathfinder to distinguish the one Clark drove from the other five. I just hoped he was back there somewhere and kept going!

We drove as far as just before Richmond, Virginia the first day. I always get drowsy driving long distances, but surprisingly, I felt like I could continue on further with no problem. Clark pointed out the diminishing daylight, and with my eyes not what they used to be, we decided to call it quits for the day. Driving at night is not fun for me, so we found a hotel for the night.

Route 95 presented no issues in terms of road conditions as we tootled along at speed limits ranging from 55 to 70. When we exited the highway for our hotel, however, ice-covered streets greeted us. Areas of clear pavement were few and far between. As I entered the parking lot, I managed to keep the two passenger-side wheels mostly off the ice. The two driver-side wheels rode over several mm of glare ice. It made me proud to be a Pennsylvania girl who learned to drive on snowy and icy roads!

I breathed a sigh of relief when I pulled into the parking spot but then took my life in my hands when I got out of the car to walk across the icy parking lot to the less-than-pristine sidewalk.  It is one thing to walk across ice on worn-down sneakers. (I will not be needing boots in Florida!) It is quite another to carry luggage while doing so.

A sign on the hotel entrance mocked us with, and I quote, “Sidewalks may be icy”! Clark was tempted to cross out the may be and write in “are”. I thought we could just cross out the “may be” and not even have to add text to the message. Finding any sidewalk to walk on without ice was the challenge we faced.

It took several trips to bring things into the hotel. Clark said anything liquid would freeze overnight at a predicted 7 degrees, so I had to bring in items I had not planned on removing from the car including his guitar. Once we got everything in the hotel room, Clark pointed out that we needed to take both cars to the restaurant and to get refueled to be ready for the next day’s departure. Okay, so I go back out on the ice rink parking lot yet again. Clark said he had directions on his phone, so he would lead. First we headed to the Wawa for gas about three miles down the road.

As we drove down the street, I saw the Wawa on the left side of the road – unfortunately on the other side of a divided highway, so no left turn. When we arrived at the traffic light, I expected Clark to make the U-turn to go back, but instead he made a full left turn. Not wanting to lose him, I followed. At the next intersection, I expected him to make a U-turn. He did not. Frustrated, I followed him again. At the next intersection, I thought he would make a U-turn. Instead he turned left into a parking lot to use that as a turn around. I decided I had had enough and made a U-turn to go back to the gas station. I guess Jersey boys don’t make U-turns! They take jughandles!

I was sure he would be close behind, but when I turned down the ice-covered street to the gas station, I saw no signs of him in my rear-view mirror. Now where did he go!!?? I figured he would arrive eventually and went about pumping the gas into my car. He finally pulled into the station having taken the main road (probably safer than my ice-covered entrance) to arrive at the pumps. When finished, he once again led the way to the restaurant. He pulled into the parking lot for a complex of stores and a movie theater and then just stopped at an intersection and did not move. The cars behind me finally went around the two of us as we just sat there.  Hum-de-hum, now what?

The voice on the GPS had told Clark “You have arrived!” so he stopped because he did not know where to go. “Hello?? Try pulling into a parking lot maybe to figure it out?!” I pulled up next to his car and asked him what was going on. After some research on the phone, he figured out the restaurant was next to the movie theater, and we made our way there to get dinner. I led the way this time! After a reasonably good meal at the Texas Roadhouse, we left and he told me to take the lead back to the hotel. Thank goodness!

When we arrived back at the hotel, Clark backed into a parking space ready to go in the morning. I pulled my car around to do the same, and when I stepped on the gas to reverse, the car slid a little down the incline I was on. Hmmm … so much for backing up. I pulled ahead into a parking spot and called it a night.

  

1/9/2017 ... Jersey Girls Don’t Pump Gas!

By the time we had breakfast and left the hotel in Richmond, Virginia on the 9th, the temperature had risen from an overnight low of 4 to a whopping great high of 7 degrees. It made me appreciate the heated seats that came with our “new” car even though Clark thought they were an unnecessary luxury.

As we prepared to leave, I surveyed the surrounding ice flow to see what I might encounter leaving the parking lot. Remembering my slide down the slope the night before, I worried that I would be unable to back out of my parking spot. Then I decided that if I managed to back out, I would probably have the same problem as the night before – no go uphill on ice! When Clark gave the “thumbs up” that he was ready, I backed out of the spot with no problem, but when I put it in drive, whoops – I began sliding backwards not moving forwards.

I had worked out a game plan for this contingency, so I backed up (only way I could go) into a parking spot with, amazingly, little-to-no ice and then put the car in drive on dry pavement.  Once moving I figured I could keep going and that worked. As I maneuvered out of the parking lot, often times driving with all four wheels on ice, I thought of my high-school driver’s ed. teacher, Mr. Bujno, who told our class a story of one of his student drivers who encountered ice on a driving session. “Don’t stop!” he said to the student, “Whatever you do, don’t stop!” The student stopped! Remembering the unkind words my teacher had to say about that student, I kept going – right through the stop sign! I wasn’t stopping for anything!

Back on the highway, Route 95, I found the roads going south towards North Carolina to be in rather dismal shape for an interstate. Instead of clearing the roads, they posted warning signs “slow down - roads may have patches of ice”. They were not kidding. Especially under bridges, the roads had rather a lot of ice on them particularly in the fast lane. Most drivers took slowing down to mean drive the 70 mph speed limit instead of speeding. In places, I quite literally held my breath as someone would pass me on ice at 70 plus mph. A couple of times I found myself traveling at faster than prudent speeds on ice when it jumped out and surprised me. With a weather report of a predicted 70 degrees by end of week, I guess the state of Virginia did not see a need to apply salt or clean further.

As I drove through the Richmond, Virginia area, my Google Maps app decided to flake out on me completely. I had been having some difficulty with the GPS positioning on my phone, but in Richmond, it went “haywire”! Repeatedly it decided my car traveled the local roads of Richmond, and the “lady on maps” tried desperately to get me back on track. As I drove down 95 South, with no exits in sight, the phone literally screamed “Make a U-turn”! Ahhhh, no, I don’t think so!

We stopped at a rest stop just as we left Virginia – actually I think it was the North Carolina welcome center. As I waited for Clark to emerge from the men’s room, I woman walked past me with a broad grin on her face. When she saw that I had noticed, she could not wait to tell me that she and her husband were heading to Florida. I told her I was going there too. Then she said, “We live there. I’m from New York originally. We just drove up to Virginia to see the snow. I haven’t seen it in 30 years!” She was so excited. I told her, “If I had known, I would have brought you some from New Jersey!”

I wondered if Clark’s Google Maps app was acting strangely. He said, “Yes, she won’t talk to me!” Oh, if only I had that problem, all she did was talk to me telling me I was totally screwed up and giving me bizarre driving directions. I must say on the positive side that she kept me entertained enough to keep me awake while I drove. We decided Clark’s problem was related to his phone’s connection to the car’s Bluetooth.

At some point, a few hundred miles down the road, we needed to stop for gas. I exited the highway and found a gas station with a multitude of pumps. Clark managed to pull right into one and start pumping. I unfortunately had to find one where I could pull up with the pump on the passenger side (the one thing I hate about this “new” car). I pulled up to wait for a pump and noticed that the car at the pump had no one in it and the nozzle was not in the tank. I figured they ran in to pay and sat to wait. They never came back, so I looked for another slot.

I saw one several bays over, so I moved over there and backed in to get the pump on the correct side of the car.  Annoyed that I had trouble getting to a pump, I got out and used my credit card to start the pumping process. The card did not take, so I tried again, and still nothing. The woman at the pump next to me told me to turn my card around, so I did. Then I got “System Error – call 1-800-dummy” twice.

Finally, I gave up on the credit card of choice and used my alternate. The card went through and it said “remove nozzle” on the display. “Strange”, I thought to myself, “how do I choose the octane?” About this time, the woman next to me noticed my New Jersey plates, and said, “Jersey girls don’t pump gas!” I smiled and said, “That’s right, we don’t.” I turned back to my car, put the nozzle to the car, and noticed two things at once – 1) the nozzle would not go in my car and 2) it was green. “Crap, it’s diesel!”, I said to myself, “Now what?”

I put the nozzle back and tried to figure out how to cancel the pump. There is no cancel button. I ran into the store and asked them to cancel pump #10, and they did so. When I came back out, the woman at the pump next to me (same one) said, “That’s diesel. Does your car take diesel?”  “No”, I said, “Maybe this Jersey girl should go back to Jersey for gas!” Sadly, she agreed with me.

Shortly after that, she finally finished washing her car windows and left, so I could take her pump. I went to get my credit card out of my purse, and voila, it was gone! In order not to miss out on finally getting gas, I used yet another card and this time got to choose my octane.  I took the nozzle to my car and found it to be about a foot short of reaching the fill for the tank. Somewhere in here, I had about had it with this gas station experience.

I desperately wanted Clark’s assistance, but he was gone. Having filled his tank and washed his windows, he was merrily sitting in his car playing with his phone trying to get Ms. Google Maps to talk to him. I backed my car up the few feet required to reach the fill, got the gas going, and ran over and banged on his window. I told him I had lost my credit card and was in full-blown panic mode. He came to help look for it. I searched my pockets multiple times as well as my wallet. We scoured the grounds all around the pump and into the store since I had run in to request they cancel the gas pump. Nothing! Even other customers looked around – nothing!

Since others wanted to pump gas and were waiting for me to get out of the way, I pulled the car to the side and went through my totally empty pockets and my wallet one more time. I found the card hiding in an obscure pocket of the wallet that I don’t normally use. In my haste to get the job done I had slipped it in to the wrong slot. Phew! By the time we left the gas station, we had had a nice, long, thrity-minute break, and we both had so much adrenaline flowing, we were wide awake for the next stretch of road.

We drove a long way on the 9^th to cover as much ground as possible and get as close to Fort Pierce as possible to arrive there with enough daylight to unload the cars. We got as far as just outside Savannah, Georgia. Unlike the day before when I felt I could have continued on for longer, I could not wait to get out of the car. The last three hours felt like torture. Only NPR radio kept me going. Even though all the talk was about Trump taking office, it kept me more alert than music, so I listened intently.

We rewarded ourselves with a yummy dinner at the Sweet Tea Grille and an early night to prepare for yet another day of driving. The good news – no ice in Savannah!

1/10/2017 ... Finally, Fort Pierce!

Another six hours behind the wheel, listening to NPR all the way, I finally arrived in Fort Pierce without losing Clark in the process. I noticed, when we stopped for gas along the way, that Clark hovered over me and helped with the pumping of the gas. I said, “What’s the matter? Don’t you trust me to do it?” He had no comment!

As with most marinas, the one containing our new boat has wheeled carts somewhat like oversized wheelbarrows but with two front wheels instead of one. We took two of those and loaded them to transport items from the cars to the boat. We did that repeatedly. All told, we made at least five trips with both carts. When done, we had basically run out of floor space on the boat to put all the bags, boxes, etc.  Once the cars were unloaded, the hard part began – stowing the goods. Clark asked me several times where we should put things, and all I could say is, “I don’t know this boat. I don’t know where to put anything!”

I decided to start with turning on the refrigerator and getting cold food stowed. We had some we brought with us from NJ. Then I knew we would need a bed to sleep in, so I tackled the master stateroom. Clark had piled clothes, towels, and a multitude of other items on the bed, so I had to dig the bed out from under before I could put sheets and blankets on it!

Since we had nothing on board for dinner, we walked across the street to a local restaurant to eat. Before we could lock up and leave the boat, however, we had to take everything in the cockpit and move it into the salon. Oh my aching back! I slept well that night that’s for sure!