- Miles today: 310
- Trip Total: 4050
- Weather: Scattered clouds. 88F in Providence RI.
- Roads: Minor traffic problems, terrible road surfaces in CT and NJ.
- Theme Song: "On Broadway" performed by George Benson.
- D-oh!: 22mm socket.
- Lesson: Stick to the plan, ignore the GPS re-routes.
Short driving day, so a late start out of Gloucester. We had to re-arrange the contents of the aft storage compartment to accommodate several pieces of gear that Tio Celestino donated to the fledgling Silent Knight Studios.
Back to collecting "Welcome" signs. Teresa wishes to apologize for the obstructed "Welcome to Rhode Island" sign, as she had to immediately get ready for the "Welcome to Connecticut" sign which suddenly appeared in the median.
This was our second entry into New York (the sign is exactly the same) but we couldn't find a "Welcome to New Jersey" sign as we crossed the George Washington Bridge. I wonder if that is intentional.
We are staying with Teresa's cousin Marianne and her family. Teresa's tia Marina and uncle Stan are living there as well. Teresa and I haven't seen them since they visited Yakima about seventeen years ago.
This will be our first night outside of the RV since we left. I anticipate some disorientation. When I was travelling a lot for business, I would sometimes wake up with an adrenaline surge wondering just where I was. The RV has been a familiar "room" as such, during this trip.
Today's lesson is to completely ignore the GPS traffic advice away from home. We learned earlier that some areas provide reports but don't update them in real-time, and that Navtech gets their (specifically erroneous) data from google. We nearly lived the ultimate RVer's nightmare today when it re-routed us "around" New York city rush-hour traffic. It took us off of Interstate-95 just north of the city and put us on the nice and scenic Pelham Parkway. Everything was fine until it re-routed us again, and we almost got stuck. It took us through The Bronx (Past the Zoo and the Conservatory) and then wanted us to turn LEFT on Broadway up ahead. (They say the neon lights are bright.)
When I was in the early stages of planning this trip, I read the horror stories of RVer's ending up in Manhattan, and while it might make it easier for us to get to the theater tomorrow, I was fairly sure we wouldn't have much luck finding parking for a 35-foot monster in Times Square. Some quick map-work by Teresa and some helpful advice from a nice NYPD patrolman got us back onto I-95 and over the GWB with no further drama. By the time we were through, I wonder how bad the traffic actually was, because it didn't seem nearly as bad as I ever expected. We arrived at our destination only about an hour later than this morning's original ETA.