My Trip Home

An actual picture from my drive (I was thinking of ending it all here).

This past Friday, I drove back to my home town in Ohio for a wedding of a good friend of mine.  The wedding was beautiful, the bride was just precious, and I got to see some friends, visit with family, and I got to go see Predators despite the wonk dialog and Adrien Brody channeling his fiercest Batman voice, it was super awesome.

All in all, it was a fantastic trip...

...EXCEPT FOR THE DRIVING.

Normally, I have no problem driving long distances.  In fact, I kind of enjoy it it gives me some thinkin' time.  And a one way trip to my little Ohio town from my bustling New Jersey berg is usually just a smidge over 9 hours.  The best part of the trip is usually driving through Pennsylvania on I-80 because it's barren and you can basically drive a decent amount over the speed limit* without having to worry about being pulled over**.

NOT THIS TIME.  No.  This time, the vast majority of Interstate 80 was riddled with construction zones, much like the pencil of the nervous, sweaty kid in your 10th grade Geometry class was riddled with teeth marks.  Instead of the serene, joyful drive through the mountains of Pennsyltucky, I had to drive through what can only be described as the afterbirth of an unfortunate, poorly planned government roadway beautification project.

At least five different times the highway was reduced to one lane in both directions and of those five different times, I can think of two that there was ZERO construction going on.  It was frustrating.  Especially when you bypass one exit to get gas assuming that the next one in seven miles would be easily accessible.  BUT IT WASN'T BECAUSE THERE WAS ONLY ONE LANE OF TRAFFIC AND NO ONE WAS MOVING BECAUSE OF IT - DESPITE THE FACT THAT NOTHING WAS BEING WORKED ON.  NO PEOPLE, NO MACHINES, NO NOTHING.  Just five miles of blocked off highway.  Here is a dramatic picture to represent the various spots of construction.  Exact locations are estimates.  And the size of the road barrels directly corresponds to the immense and indescribable rage that filled my entire being when I'd see this.

Needless to say, my nine hour drive became a ten and a half hour drive on the way to Ohio.  And on the way back, my nine hour drive became an ELEVEN hour drive.  All of that extra time was spent either moving at an incredible slow, zombie shuffle pace not a virus-zombie pace - those suckers are fast!  I'm talking about a dead-zombie pace or a complete stand still, which on two separate occasions included me having multiple anxiety attacks over the thought of running out of gas in the hills of Pennsylvania and having to walk 13 miles to the next exit to get gas and beg a local to drive me back to my car which would inevitably lead to some sort of Wrong Turn-like sequence of events that ended with me being eaten/raped/both by the dueling banjo kid from Deliverance.

Luckily, I made it home in both directions safely.  Without ever running out of gas.  And outside of the massive blood pressure spikes that I repeatedly had, teetering on the edge of a massive pulmonary embolism from the deep vein thrombosis my mother works in an open heart unit, I have fears I suffered from barely moving my legs for half a day, it really wasn't that bad.

Plus, I got to see an interesting way of cooling off your van when the AC goes out...

All in all, never drive through Pennsylvania on Interstate 80 on low fuel.  Or ever.


*- I, in no way, condone speeding.


**- I was pulled over one time when I was driving home a few years back for Christmas... speeding in a construction zone***.  The officer was nice enough to downgrade my ticket to a lesser offense so that I could keep my license.


***- I like to make good time.


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