We left for a 3-day weekend in Pennsylvania on Saturday morning at 5:50am. The few other cars on the road maintained the speed limit or lower, so I was reticent to be the solo left-lane speed demon. Maybe the other drivers knew something that I didn’t, like that the Mass Pike is riddled with patrols on pre-dawn Saturday mornings. Maybe this is how the state plans to balance their budget. But after humoring the speed limit for 20 minutes, the sight of the wide open highway was too much of a temptation, and I notched up my speed to 75 mph, reassuring myself that the only reason everyone else is driving so slow is because they all have drugs in their cars.
We blew into Connecticut as the sun rose and the highway steadily gained vehicular population. I abused the touchscreen radio — the downside of Sirius satellite radio is that I’m constantly convinced that there’s a better song on another station. “Boy, I’m really enjoying listening to Adam Ant’s ‘Goody Two Shoes,’ but what if the Alt Nation station is playing that Big Pink song?” The further South we ventured, the fewer fellow Volkswagens we saw. It’s funny that, on my daily commute, I can be in a flock of Jettas, Passats, and Golfs, and feel content within my demographically determined destiny. But as we sped down I-95 South, the VWs turned into Chryslers, Jeeps, and Buicks.
I saw a bumper sticker that said DNT TXT N DRV. No, because that would be distracting… kinda like bumper stickers.
At 8:30am, it was time for breakfast. I wanted to clear NYC before stopping, but the prospect of a NJ Turnpike rest stop breakfast was more terrifying than gridlock on the George Washington bridge, so we decided to pull off of I-95 somewhere in Connecticut. Mr. P suggested we stop in a random hotel and raid their complimentary breakfast bar, a surprisingly devious and white-trash plan for my European epicurean husband. Though it was tempting to do a drive-by grab-and-go on some Holiday Inn Express hard-boiled eggs and bacon, I am convinced that there is some sort of safeguard against such unseemly looting of hotel breakfast bars, for surely we are not the first people to be tempted to just wander into a hotel lobby to partake of the substitute scrambled eggs, industrial sausage, and highly-preserved bakery items? So we stopped at a diner.
We pulled off of the PA turnpike at 11 am, meaning that while the trip did not qualify as a Boston-to-Philly driving world record, it was certainly a personal best. We were so early that we decided to take a leg-stretching walk in Valley Forge National Park before descending upon family. We saw deer. Amazing that, five hours ago, I was pushy my sleepy ass out the door, and now I was walking with the wildlife in PA. Oh, deer!
