Day 1 of the Great Road Trip

The day started at 4:00 AM when I first woke up. I took my shower and packed up the car.

Callee the kitten was to be traveling in the animal crate that I had on the passenger seat. And Emi was going to be traveling on the makeshift doggie bed on top of the crate.

When I first made my measurements, it seemed like I was going to have plenty of room for the crate and Emi. But the configuration of the car seat made it such that Emi only had inches of room between the top of the crate and the roof of the car. Fortunately it was enough room for her. And Emi always traveled well.

However, with the crate and Emi taking up all that space, I had very limited visibility out of the passenger window. I could only see the side view mirror when I ducked my head low. And I had very limited visibility through my rear windshield ~ just this one tiny little gap.

My first stop was going to be the Super 8 Motel on the edge of Pittsburgh. I was going there because I had planned to visit Gypsy and Gomez at S.P.A.R.R.O. in Plum, which was just under a 10-minute drive from the Super 8.

My GPS said that the trip would take about 9 1/2 hours. But with all the traffic and construction I was behind the wheel for 11 1/2 hours.

The first day of travel was by far the most grueling part of the journey.

By 4:45 AM, I was all packed up and on the road, making my last drive through Mattapoisett and down I-195.

I had sort of expected a gradually shedding of weight, a lightening of spirit, and an increasing sense of relief the further I drove away from my old home in Mattapoisett, the place where I lived during the past 25 years.

But those sensations did not enter the picture in any way, shape, or form.

The first and foremost thing on my mind was concern about the very poor and limited visibility that I had, especially my inability to see cars on my right. I had to be particularly mindful of the placement of cars as I passed them and then tried to get back into the right hand lane. And while it was still dark, I kept my rear view mirror in the day time position because it was easier to see the head lights of the cars behind me through that tiny little gap of visibility in the back.

The second thing on my mind was to get myself through and away from all the places that held any sort of connection to the area.

There was a slight slip of the grip when I got through Warwick and the outer edge of Rhode Island. But I was still close enough to my old home to turn around and go back. And the magnetic pull from Mattapoisett was still strong enough.

Even after 2 hours of driving, after I had well gotten into Connecticut, there were still familiar names of places that kept me connected to the area.

Trumbull, Connecticut was the town where the ladies that Ariana and I met at the diner were from.

Clinton was where our friends Vic and Denny lived.

Madison was where Neil worked when he was with Aramark.

Guilford was where Vic worked as a cop. It was also the town where a college dorm mate, and a very brief lover, was from.

New Haven was where the Amtrak train would stop when Rebecca, my best friend from college, and I would take the train to Washington, D.C., when we would go there to stay with her father.

It wasn't until I was well out of Connecticut that the connections slowly started shedding.

Gas prices in Massachusetts were $2.64 a gallon. They were $2.74 in Connecticut. In New York they jumped to $2.84.

New York and New Jersey were awful. They were the 2 worst states to drive through. Not only was it the start of morning rush hour, the energy vibrations of those states felt frantic, frazzled, and dirty. They felt tense and toxic. And I could not get out of there fast enough. I was having an anxiety attack driving through New York and regretted that my anti-anxiety meds were not where I could easily reach them.

My GPS was going to take me through New York City. No way was I going to go through NYC, especially during rush hour. So I got off at the exit that would take me to the Tappen-Zee Bridge that would take me into New Jersey.

Once in New Jersey, I started feeling a bit better, but not by much.

The beginning part of New Jersey still had the nasty New York vibes. And while I was on I-78, the area's hostility manifested by this large black "asteroid" of some 2 1/2 to 3 inches, flying from out of nowhere and striking my front windshield.

Thank God the object was a large chunk of rubber. Had it been a rock, it would have shattered my windshield instead of just bouncing off and leaving a mark on the glass.

I have no idea where that "asteroid" came from. There were no trucks nearby or any other obvious places where it could have come from.

Oddly enough, as startling as having this large black object come at me and bounce off my windshield, it was also the junction where the toxic tension of the area started slipping away.

By now I was driving through the nicer forested parts of New Jersey.

New Jersey still had some slight and subtle connections to my past.

When I was in college, a lot of the students came from New Jersey. A favorite conversational exchange between them was:

"Where are you from?"

"New Jersey."

"Oh! Which exit?"

You see, cars and driving are a big part of the New Jersey culture. Bruce Springsteen sings about the New Jersey obsession for cars and driving in his song "Born to Run."

New Jersey was also where my college boyfriend Vernon came from. I couldn't remember which part of New Jersey ~ which exit ~ he came from, and I wondered if I was anywhere near his childhood home.

And that was the very last and tenuous connection to my past. From that point on, I was on a trajectory path to my future.

I-78 took me into Pennsylvania, where I had to pay a 75 cent toll to remain on the highway.

When I got into Pennsylvania, I noticed that the exit numbers started with 308. (Exit numbers go lower as you travel west.) I had never seen exit numbers that high before. God! It was going to be a LONG drive across to Pittsburgh, which was on the other side of the state.

I made my first stop for gas in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. I paid $25 to fill up my tank.

I was already 5 1/2 to 6 1/2 hours into my journey. And little did I know that with all the construction that it was going to take me at least another 4 hours to cross the state.

While pumping gas, I noticed that I bladder could use some voiding. So I decided that once I was back on the road that I would stop at the next available rest stop.

(I cannot remember the name of the town where I stopped.)

While using the facilities at the rest stop there was a woman there who asked if I was the one who was traveling with the little dog. From her high perch above the animal crate, Emi was in plain sight.

While Emi traveled well, it was a totally different story with the kitten. Callee hated being in the crate. Almost as soon as we started, she splashed the water from her water bowl so vigorously that it hit the windshield at the opposite end. And she maintained a constant ruckus until we were well out of New York.

After I took care of my bathroom needs, it was time to let Emi out to take care of hers. I also tried to give Emi some water, but she was not interested in it.

The drive through Pennsylvania was nice for the most part ~ green forests, rolling hills, and farm land. Traffic was light. You really have no idea of how much congested the New England, New York, and New Jersey areas are until you leave them and drive through other parts of the country.

But there was still plenty of construction ~ a lot of it was of the stop-and-go variety. And there were some areas where I had to suddenly step on the brakes, which would occasionally dislodge the animals from their positions of rest.

In fact, Ariana called at the most awkward time ~ just when the lane that I was on was about to disappear. Fortunately there weren't all that many cars on the road, and I was able avert disaster by safely getting into the next lane.

I pretty much traveled across the whole state of Pennsylvania on I-78, watching the exit numbers drop as I was heading further west.

As I got closer to Pittsburgh, the GPS put me onto Route 22. I had to travel 54 miles on Rt. 22. And it was not a pleasant road to travel on (though I found out later that it was a much better alternative than traveling on the turnpike and paying nearly $50 in tolls).

Rt. 22 wound its way through the middle of the towns in western Pennsylvania. That meant slow speeds and lots of traffic lights. To add insult to injury, most of that road was turn up due to construction.

God! I was going to have to endure 54 miles of this?

I was already watching my expected arrival time constantly getting oushed back on my GPS. My shoulder and neck were killing me, with my muscles occasionally going into spasm. I was having a killer of a headache. And I was already quite exhausted ~ so exhausted that I was praying for this leg of the journey to end.

I stopped for gas a second time at a town called Export. It cost me $24 to fill up my tank.

In less than an hour or so, I arrived at the Super 8 Motel at the far outskirts of Pittsburg.

What a blessed relief!

I was checked into my room by a young Indian girl wearing a name tag that said "Vijay Patel." Seeing that reminded me of the joke about why Indian women have red dots on their foreheads. That's so that when they marry, their new husbands scratch away at the dots to see what they get for a dowry, to see if they "won" a gas station, convenience store, or a motel.

It was 4:20 PM when I checked into my room. Since I started traveling at 4:45 Am, I was on the road for about 11 1/2 hours.

I was grateful for the luggage cart at the motel. It made it much easier to cart the kitten's crate and all my stuff into my room.

I let Callee out of the crate when we settled in. But she had to go right back in after her first act upon release was to scratch on the motel chair.

As dead tired and exhausted as I was, I called Joe at S.P.A.R.R.O. No one answered, so I left a message. Then I made my "obligatory" calls to Neil, Ariana, Roma, Carol, and Barbara ~ to let everyone know that I arrived safe and sound.

At 5:00 I tried calling Joe again. Still no answer. So I left another message and decided to drive out to the dog rescue place, figuring that Joe was probably outside taking care of the dogs.

As I was getting ready to stap into my car, Joe called. He was on his way back from picking up his wife. He would get there just before I arrived.