Wild Driving Day

Our goal today was to get to Connecticut, not far from New Haven.  We knew we had to go by 2 major cities, but with highway driving all the way, we didn’t expect too much trouble...busy but that’s OK.

So here we started off leaving Delaware.  This is the Delaware Bridge over the Delaware River (do you suppose this is where Washington crossed?).  I doubt this bridge was there then :)

So Delaware was a piece of cake.  With $8 in tolls (same as we paid getting down to where we were staying), we were on our way.  Then we were in New Jersey.

Great!  No problems so far...except we knew we would be on the NJ Turnpike, which will cost us some money in tolls.  But time wise, it was better to do that.  It was already going to be a long enough driving day.  And $42.75 in tolls.  (Ouch).  And we passed by Philadelphia without any issue.  One big city down.

So the end of the NJ Turnpike means the end of New Jersey and we’re into New York again, and not just NY, but New York City.  There it is from across the Hudson (we’re still in New Jersey in this photo and on a bridge).

So, we have to cross the Hudson River, which means getting onto the upper end of Manhattan.  This means crossing the George Washington Bridge.  We  debated whether to take the lower level, or the upper level.  The height restrictions were only 6” different, so it didn’t really matter.  The traffic on the lower level was better, so we decided to do that.

And that was our first mistake.  When signs say “All Trucks” use upper level, usually they mean commercial vehicles (kind of like crossing the border).  Well, we were wrong.  We got to the toll booth (yep, another toll) and she was very friendly, but she asked if we had propane, which we do, of course.  Nope, can’t go across the lower level.  She told us to pull up just beyond and wait for an officer.  We did, and we got a police escort to the upper level.  Cool...I guess, and we didn’t pay a toll.

Well...not yet anyway.  We got to the toll booth on the upper level.  $50.00 please.  What?!?!?!  Holy crap, just to cross the bridge?  What are you gonna do?  So this is the costly bridge.

Our adventures are just beginning.  We see a “parkway” going north along the Hudson and our GPS told us to go that way, so hey...seems fine.  Suddenly, we see a sign that says “cars only”, but no explanation as to why.  Again, is it to just keep commercial traffic off of it?  Don’t know.  So we carry on.  Then we see a height restriction coming up - oh oh.  So we stopped at the side of the road where an official-looking building was, and a police car as well.  A very nice police officer told us we should not continue on the parkway.  He gave us directions to get to Hwy I-87, which I had plugged into my GPS.  He said that was all good.  It did mean going through upper Manhattan though.  What can you do?

So he told us to take the 2nd exit from where we were (the 1st one was nothing but trouble).  So we did that.  Somehow we missed where we were supposed to turn off because it’s not like a ramp or anything.  So we stopped again at the side of the road by a little tree-lined grassy area.  The main reason was because we saw an overpass up ahead with a 10’ height restriction.  Jeeeeeez.  Our RV is about 11’!  Now what?  Traffic is blowing by us on the left and this boulevard thingy is on our right and we don’t know where to go.  I was all set to call the police to help us out AGAIN, when a Good Samaritan/Guardian Angel came over to us.  His car was parked on the next street over (where we should have been).  He told us another RV had the same problem not long ago and what they did was go over the “boulevard” to get onto the proper street.

Well, what else can we do.  We sure couldn’t go forward on the parkway.  So he backed his vehicle up and stopped traffic for us while we got onto the proper road.  We made it through signs and trees.  He then said he would lead us to Hwy I-87.  Perfect!  We had to meander through the city to get there.  But following him made it much easier than trying to figure out where to go next.  We had a few turns to make.  He got us there, thankfully, and we were on our way again.

Hmmm, just go up here and we’ll connect with I-95 in a roundabout way, but we weren’t taking any “side” roads any more today.  In about 1-1/2 hours, we’ll be done for the day.  Oh, and another $1.75 in tolls - same as a car.  That was unusual, and our only break of the day.

This is Friday afternoon, and a nice warm weekend on the way.  Well, guess what New Yorkers do?  Head for the beaches in Connecticut, of course.  We made it to Connecticut.  Whew!  We were glad to be done with NYC.

And, 3-1/2 hours later we arrived at our place for the next 2 nights.

Yeah...it was a long friggin’ day, with much traffic and anxiety.  Gerard did an amazing job to get us through the mess...and we can’t thank our Guardian Angel enough.  We were both spent because of the stress and after having some pizza, went to bed early.  And to top it off, I left Tibby’s leash back in Delaware.  But he’s not very ambitious these days, so we weren’t too worried.  We’ll pick up another one today.  (Another $5?)