Day One was your typical drive through New England. I stopped at my favorite haunts in Salem, sipped tea with my Aunt and had a slumber party at Alligator's.
Day Two began with a lovely breakfast at a local greasy spoon run by a biker couple (rumored to have received rave reviews from the infamous Purple Room Guru). The first four hours of driving were uneventful. It was HOUR 4 that the real adventure across country began. I stopped to gas up at a service area in New York when the torrential down pour and howling wind began. I took off from the rest stop with bolts of lightening streaking down on both sides of the highway. As the rain started to ease-SNAP! My driver side windshield wiper broke so that it was hanging across my side mirror. Thank Jesus, Budda, Allah, Zeus, Mother Earth and all the world's dieties, rays of sunlight peeked through the clouds and a road sign appeared telling me I was 1 mile from a rest area. It's official the wiper lever is broken and unfixable today. The question became, Do I continue to follow the white rabbit down the hole? The clouds cleared and I continued on my journey. To add insult to injury, 15 minutes after declaring the wiper dead, I pulled up to the Buffalo, NY toll plaza to be greeted by a large prison inmate who painfully extracted an $11.65 toll, followed 10 minutes later by another toll ticket plaza. I will fondly remember New York as the "prison shower" of my journey. The most memorable NY road sign to sum up the day, "Correctional Facility Ahead, Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers." I arrived, after an 11 1/2 hour day of driving, at the Stanford Hostel in Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio, to be entertained by a group of disco dancing, accappella singing divas. It's really had been a delightful day on the whole.
Tolls in New York: $14.50
Parts and Labor to fix wipers: TBA
Road Trip Across America: Priceless
4 comments:
WOW! Just one day and your road trip is blossoming into a beautiful adventure:)
Rock those disco moves!
Nice one, crazy cat. Just an FYI, though, "Yeti" is not the same as Sasquatch. Sasquatch = Bigfoot whereas Yeti = Abominable Snowman. It is true that the Sasquatch has been rumored to be in the deep forests of Washington State, but Yeti searches typically focus on the Himalayas.
Either way, I suggest your first purchase in Washington State be a 7mm Winchester Magnum. You'll need something with plenty of *pow* to drop the big beast.
Should be good eatin'!
- Ranger Man
P.S. You might want to change your comment requirments so people don't need a Google "identity" to post comments. Keep the blog up!
Love your "journaling" and am reminded of my road trip to St.Louis from Maine last summer when I hit a torrential downpour and sought refuge in a gas station that was flooding as the rain came in under the door! I also had a broken wiper! Sometimes history does repeat itself, over and over and over. Of course, you know I made the trip to Syracuse several times a year, and those NYS tolls broke my traveling piggy bank every time! You may also know that I lived in Tacoma, Wash for a year in the shadow of Mt. Rainier where we spent many blissful hours! I envy you your time there and look forward to your future entries! hugs & luv
Ahh, I remember the torrential rains & flash floods from my days of living in upstate NY... Great anecdote! I look forward to more!
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