Batlles of the Road...

When last we chatted I mentioned that MFO and I were going to travel up to Providence Rhode Island so she could attend an Archivist workshop.  Easy, right? just gas the MOMSTER

And set out.  The first part of the journey went fine, up through Annapolis over the Bay Bridge, up 301 into Delaware, easy drive with interesting sights to see.

And then, shortly after joining dear old I95 there were more things to see, a little closer up

 

 

 

Which turned out to be

Resulting in:

Which then permitted us to see the lovely surroundings of Philly inch by inch, including one of my old employers

 

The "joys" of travel

 Then, to make matters more complicated, there was some confusion under pressure by the right seater (the engineer on the team, or, um, me) as to the difference between I95 and the New Jersey Turnpike.   They are NOT the same road, and in fact are in two different states.  And if you take the road more traveled (I95) it leads you where you might not wish to go (stated mildly).  Just because on the map, a road crosses the turnpike, that does NOT necessarily mean that there is access to said Turnpike at that point.  So eventually we determined that we had to get on the Pennsylvania Turnpike to get to the New Jersey Turnpike.  Kind of a Turnpike to Turnpike deal.

That little maneuver turned out to cost us 33!! (unplanned) bucks.  Picture this:  let’s assume that you are going to have to be on the Pennsylvania Turnpike (like it or not) in order to get to the New Jersey Turnpike.  And as you approach the entrance plaza, you are confronted with a mass of toll booths, with various signs over each gate like “EZ Pass Only”, and others that said “EZ Pass – Ticket” and “EZ Pass – No Ticket”.   Since there are approximately 150 cars and trucks in a hurry behind you, you have to make a split second decision:  “Well, we don’t have a ticket, so I guess we’re “No Ticket””. And so we guided the MOMSTER to that lane with the whole back window filled by a grill that said “Kenilworth”.  When we got to the booth, there was no human, and further more, apparently no mechanism to obtain a ticket.  As she searched in vain for a way to receive a ticket, the nice over the road trucker behind us helped by blowing his 200dB air horns, and started yelling something like “No TICKET!!  NO TICKET!!”.  We folded and MFO floored it.  So we entered the pike ticketless and proceeded to the border with New Jersey (our entrance on the Penn Turnpike was the last in Pennsylvania),. We crossed over the state line and eventually got to the gates closing out Pennsylvania before starting the New Jersey version.  When the man held out his hand and said “Ticket Please” MFO informed him that we had no ticket.  "What?"  And we gave him the reader’s digest story of the previous toll gate.  He apologized profusely, but said he had no option but to charge us as if we had been on the turnpike from the beginning (and the Keystone State is pretty long as you might remember) which amounted to the Thirty Three Dollars.  He did say that the signs were confusing, and gave us a little form to fill out with the hope of getting a refund.  That's a relief

So in a great frame of mind we continued on the New Jersey Turnpike, veered off on the Garden State Parkway, went up north and crossed the Hudson on the Tappan Zee Bridge (at the suggestion of a veteran NY traveler).  Aside from NASCAR like conditions it was (in our minds) still better than fighting our way through NYC, avoiding signs like

So as the miles and hours went by we marked our progress with yet more signs

 

Until at last we saw the skyline of Providence

So ended a long nerve wracking day on the Northeast Corridor

There were also some other interesting signs along the way (I got lots!),

And for all you nostalgia nuts

After we got to the hotel (a Marriott) we were pretty bushed and following a restorative beverage in the room we ate in the restaurant in the hotel.  Another story, and despite all we did take the time to be

DFD

More to come at some point..and on the bright side today was a good day and a great dinner tonight!!