The long and winding road, part 3

In which your humble author returns to a familiar road. Catch up if necessary with parts one and two.

Day 5, no driving

Sunday, the day in the past that marked our collective return to our homes (before we realized that spending most of the weekend on the road was no fun), the day that now represents the relaxing wrap-up after the locals have gone home. We clean up, put most things back in order, eat more food, watch the races, eat more food, and then eat.

No, really. One of the "problems" in the past was that apparently there were too many leftovers after the guests departed, so now we "have" to eat more food before we leave. (Of course, when they prepare extra food on Sunday, that makes our jobs more difficult. This time it was some kind of Thai dish. Very tasty.)

Now, you might think that there would be few things I'd enjoy more than watching a four-hour race, but you would be wrong for two reasons. One is that I really don't enjoy racing that much. I don't know why, it's just not my thing.

(warning: peeve alert.) The other is that for some reason, most networks (ABC in particular) seem to think that you only really want to watch about 30% of the race, so they show you a few laps, shrink the screen and mute the race to show you a commercial, go to a full-screen commercial, and then cut back to live action after they missed a crash or a key pass or something. They then repeat this process about 50 times.

Imagine watching a football game this way. How many times would you bother? Once or twice, maybe, and that would be it. Better yet, imagine watching soccer that way. (If you're old enough, you don't have to imagine. ESPN used to do that for World Cup matches until irate fans pointed out to them that you don't do it that way. This was back when ESPN thought it knew everything about sports. What's that? Oh, never mind.) It doesn't help that Tony George pretty much killed open-wheel racing several years ago, so the sport itself (even the race) doesn't have the allure it has 20 or 30 or 40 years ago.

So we sat through most of the race, then I drove my friend and his wife to the airport to drop her off (they had separate flights because, well, it's a long story and not mine to tell). We got back in time for the next race (second verse, same as the first) and resumed our places. (Mine was in front of my laptop, naturally. With the internet confusion cleared up, I was alternating between my baseball sim and various Facebook things, mostly Castle Age. Are you in my army yet?)

As the evening wore on, we switched from unexciting NASCAR to the wonders of DVR, watching the cult classic Superbad. (Yes, I know it's hardly old enough to earn "cult classic" status, but it's really the only type of praise it deserves. It's dumb but funny.) As an added bonus, we tried to match people at the party to characters in the movie. Well, okay, maybe just to Seth and Evan. But it worked.

"Seth" was easy to match, in part because he, too, was stumbling drunk. (In the old days, we basically had a race to drunk to see who won, and usually nobody did. Now, some don't drink at all, and most others don't get too drunk. The exceptions are usually locals who don't know any better. We may not drink heavily, but we can make sure you do.) He was also clumsily blunt with many, many thoughts ... it was rather entertaining to listen to him throw out compliments that weren't even left-handed.

The catch to that part of the story was that he had a 5:55 AM flight on Monday. There were several jokes about who would get him to the airport in time to catch his flight (surprisingly, while a taxi was mentioned frequently, it did not win) and even a couple of thoughts that perhaps he wouldn't even make it onto the flight. ("Seth" is a tall, heavy guy. He's also not necessarily the kind of guy who would be a low-key drunk at an airport. We wouldn't have been surprised if security had told him to take a seat for 4-6 hours.) Apparently, he made it ... my only concern was making it clear I wasn't going to be taking him. I had enough driving to do the next day, thank you very much.

Back to the hotel for the final night ...

Day 6: Richmond to Indy, about 615 miles

I get up, pack up my things, head out to the car (did I mention how much I love express checkout? there is nothing like avoiding the clueless people at the front desk; usually I mean the people checking out, but not always), and back to the house. I normally go home from the hotel, but this time I decided to max out time with my friends.

Everything was in order when I arrived. "Seth" had been successfully delivered to the airport, presumably made his flight, and we could focus on, well, not much of anything. TCM was showing The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, a classic Spaghetti Western, so I stayed to watch that, and then after lunch (glad I stayed to eat some tasty grilled hot dogs rather than eating on the road), the rest of us travelers packed our cars and headed our separate ways (some to North Carolina, some to the western side of Virginia, and me to old familiar I-64).

The interstate was just as I remembered it, and I settled in for the drive I'd done a few times in the past ... although this time, the stop-every-hour trick made it much more bearable. My GPS didn't catch on to the US-35 trick because, well, the DVD is old and doesn't know about the construction in West Virginia, but it figured things out soon enough.

Unfortunately, I didn't get quite the weather I wanted. There was a bit of rain as I was traveling west, so I had to turn on the defroster at times, and that knocked quite a bit off my mileage. (I got 55.7 mpg on the Altoona-to-Boston leg and 55.0 on the Boston-to-Richmond leg. Yep. Take that, BP.) Fortunately, a semi led me through the two-lane section in WV, and once we were on the divided-highway part that goes through southeast Ohio, everything was fine.

I got home pretty late – very late, in fact, about 3 AM, mostly because of my unwillingness to leave – but it wasn't a big deal. After all, the cats were well-fed, the house was still without AC, and I didn't have to get up for work the next day.

Even as a consultant, I knew to take the next day off. Sure, I can drive 2500 miles in six days, but I need some time to catch up afterward. A man's got to know his limitations.

The long and winding road, part 2

When last we left our hero, he was venturing across the land, braving holiday traffic and ancient subway systems to visit friends and relatives. Our story continues ...

Day 3: Boston to Richmond, about 650 miles

This was the big one. (Check the map again. This is the long squiggle on the east side of the "triangle" representing this voyage.) I knew there could be a number of complications, not the least of which was holiday traffic on roads with which I'm not familiar (I've been to Richmond, just not from the northeast), and the lack of cold drinks and protein bars in the car could be a problem, but there was nothing to do but stick it out.

I kept to the same pattern, stopping about every hour, except for the first two hours. Connecticut has lots of exits but no rest areas along I-84 (I prefer rest areas for quick stops because they're right off the highway and don't have additional customers like fast food places and gas stations do), so a couple of hours in, I noticed my attention was wandering a bit. (In fact, that was the worst it turned out to be on the whole trip.) A stop in New York took care of the attention problem, and I patiently retraced my steps to I-81, then headed away from the old route and toward new territory (and new states: I'd never been to Maryland before).

In the past, taking I-64 was nice, except for two stretches: the West Virginia Turnpike, where I-77 meets it, and the stretch in Virginia where I-81 (yep, the one I'm on) meets it. In both cases, traffic picked up as the interstates merged and dropped off abruptly as soon as they parted. Of course, this time I'd be on the busy part, or so I thought.

My GPS had other ideas. After six or seven hours of begging me to take the coastal route, it finally conceded that perhaps I had the right idea. However, as I crossed into Virginia, it suggested that maybe I shouldn't head back to I-64 (going southwest), but instead should try US-17 to I-95 to Richmond.

I thought about it for a while. Points in favor of US-17: it was more direct and was probably still a major highway, and if there was still traffic, I'd be closer to Richmond. Points in favor of I-64: it's an interstate, so there wouldn't be any stoplights, and it might not be that much longer. I took the US highway. Sure enough, there were a couple of stoplights that really slowed me down (probably added 15 minutes to the trip), but overall it wasn't bad, and once I was on I-95, everything was fine.

Finally hit the hotel at 8:15 or so, about 13 hours after I left. (I stay at the same one every time, the Holiday Inn Express on Mayland. It's just off I-64, so very convenient there, but about a 40-minute drive to my friends' house. There really isn't much that's closer.) Hooked up the laptop, updated my status and gave an approximate arrival time, cleaned up, and headed out. (I left the laptop: didn't feel like tearing it down three times today.)

Made it out to the house at a decent hour. Managed to avoid being parked in – their driveway is fairly long and has spots to the side for additional parking, because people tend to come and go at these things. On Friday, I'm typically one of the view who does leave, so I need to be at the back if possible.

Usually we pitch in around the house, inside and out, partly to thank the couple for hosting every year and partly because we like to help. This time, though, all the hard labor was done. (Oh darn.) All I could do was sit and eat, and eat I did. Friday, it was "just" meatballs, white chicken chili (I think), and some kind of coconut-mango cake that was pretty good. Caught up with the regulars who made it, hung out for a while, and headed back to the hotel around 1 or so.

As a side note, have you ever noticed how short the "king-sized" beds in hotel rooms seem to be? I'm not at all a tall person (5'8½", the last time someone measured me: I took the extra half-inch and kept it), and yet I've never found a bed in which I could comfortably sleep longways. Maybe it's because they use suction to make the beds, I don't know, but I always feel like I have to sleep at an angle to be under the covers. (There's a joke here about being single, I'll let you make it.)

Day 4, no driving

Well, by "no" I mean "to the hotel and back", but frankly, when you've crossed 11 state lines in 3 days, a little 40-minute drive doesn't even count.

Slept in until 10 or so, hit Castle Age, and then back to the house for the real party. (In the old days – aside from the fact I wouldn't have been driving because I stayed at the house – this would have meant hitting the keg. Now it means parking my butt in a chair in the air conditioning and staying away from drunk people.) Hanging out, playing Out of the Park Baseball because the internet connection isn't working (well, it was, but the secondary router wasn't, and I didn't feel like interrupting the hosts to get the key to the primary router), drinking this excellent licorice-mint tea, and waiting for the food to finish.

The hosts are very, very, very good cooks (did I mention that already?), as are some of the guests, so we always eat very well, and this time we had a challenge: clear out space in the chest freezer so they could fit the half cow they'd ordered. (Yeah, a half. Not a quarter.) Hmm, sausage: Greek sausage was very good, and I think there were kielbasa as well. (They make their own sausage, and no, you don't want to know how it's made.) French fries. A deep-fried turkey injected with some kind of habanero sauce. (They also like things spicy and grow many different kinds of peppers. Strong peppers. Like the kind that you have to wear gloves to handle, and even if you do, getting some oil on your skin may mean a trip to the basement to find laundry detergent. Don't know what I mean? Imagine the burn you felt on your tongue the last time you ate something really, really spicy. Now imagine that on your hands.) Pulled pork. Curry. Some more veggie stuff I didn't eat. Hamburgers. Hot dogs. Deep-fried brisket. (I know, it sounds weird, but it was good too.) Cake. Cookies. Brownies. S'mores by the bonfire.


The fire. That's my job. (I'm not saying I'm a pyromaniac. They are. I don't actually stand in the fire, you know, just close to it.) They have a nice fire circle behind the house, and when the weather is right (as opposed to when it's so dry you can't have a fire), we build a big fire. Big. Not this time, because we didn't have the attention for it, and the NHL was unkind enough to put on a game right around dusk, but it was enough to burn some fun things and make lots of marshmallows. (The swirled marshmallows are interesting, if you've not tried them before.) The other pyro and I made a little assembly line: we'd load up marshmallow sticks for the kids, they'd cook them and come back to us, we'd set up little plates, put the marshmallows on the plates with whatever they wanted (S'mores or plain), and load up the next sticks for the next kids. (About seven kids in all. We can handle it. We're former food service professionals.) At least half of the S'mores were actually eaten and not dropped on the ground, so that was a success.

Back inside to watch Game 1 of the Finals ... there was one drunk Flyers fan there (yes, I know it's redundant, but who's telling this story anyway?) who thought it was a "low-scoring" game. Look, we just saw a lacrosse game (NCAA semifinals) end 12-8. That's low-scoring. 3-2 after 1 is not a low-scoring hockey game. Anyway, the Blackhawks win, the remaining outsiders clear out, the regulars filter inside, and we have our ritual viewing of EuroTrip. (Scotty doesn't know.)

We move cars around just right so that the drunk people can stay and I can leave (this is harder than you think when you only have a gravel driveway and some vague spots to one side that may or may not be big enough for a car). I head back to the hotel for a good night's rest, looking forward to another day of vacation before I have to leave.

The long and winding road

So. Last week was Memorial Day, which means the first of my two semi-annual trips to Virginia to visit friends from college and beyond. (Some of us have been friends for almost 25 years. Ponder that.) However, it was also Harvard's commencement ceremonies, and because my brother was graduating on the Dean's List, I thought perhaps I should go and see him.

Unfortunately, it took me a while to figure out that these two events were not in separate months or even weeks, but rather in the same week. Inconvenient with respect to flying, to say the least. I dislike the TSA immensely and will do just about anything to avoid them, so I'm not inclined to fly if there are other means of travel. (I enjoy flying itself, just not what they've done to it.) And a three-legged trip is harder to pull off than a two-legged trip, especially if a) the first leg is really important and b) it's in an expensive city. So I could try to arrive a day early and pay for two days in a hotel, or I could try to arrive on time and risk the airlines completely screwing me over. Right.

So it was by car instead. No, it wasn't all at once. Don't be silly.

Now, I'd never been to Boston as an adult, so I needed Google to help me find the first two legs of the trip ... Richmond to Fishers I knew all too well. (Actually, Google came up with a shortcut for that one. US-35 is pretty good except for the remaining two-lane stretch in WV that they are slowly improving. It beats hell out of the AA in Kentucky, the road that ate my car.)

Google said sure, want to drive it all at once? How about I-70 to I-71 to I-80, then I-81, I-84, and I-90? There was no place halfway between here and Boston on I-80 to stay. So I said no, let's take I-70 instead. I guess Altoona will do.

For the Boston-to-Richmond leg, of course it pointed out that I-95 runs, well, from Boston to Richmond. I pointed out that it would be Friday of Memorial Day weekend, and if it thought I was driving to the coast from Boston and then through New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, it was nuts. I just grabbed all of that route and dragged it back inland, retracing my steps to Wilkes-Barre and then heading south on I-81 to I-64. (My GPS later convinced me to take I-81 to Winchester and then head over on US-17 to I-95.)

Day 1: Fishers to Altoona, about 450 miles

Very uneventful. I left around 11, I think, realizing there was no hurry. I had 8-9 hours ahead of me and didn't need to arrive early in the evening. I actually forgot I wasn't passing through Pittsburgh; if I had, it probably would have been right around rush hour. I stopped about once an hour at rest areas to keep my alertness up, and I made my way through some of the food and juice I brought, picking up soft drinks on the way. By the way, there was one rest area in Ohio (boo) along I-70 that had a novel idea: restrooms and vending machines in a single, air-conditioned building. Yes, you may be thinking that this is common sense, but look next time you drive. How many times do you see the vending machines in a completely separate area? How many rest areas are still the old kind with open doors?

I got to the hotel and was pleasantly surprised to find a refrigerator with two free bottles of water and snacks (granola bar and popcorn). Bottled water on a trip? Outstanding!

Logged on (wired connection, no big deal though), posted an update, ran through Castle Age stuff, showered, went to bed. (Travel tip: shower in the evening when you have more time and have hours of road on you. Not recommended for those traveling with a significant other with a sensitive nose.)

Day 2: Altoona to Boston, about 470 miles

All new territory to me. Got up at 6, cleaned up, packed, hit the road by 7. (My brother's graduation would be over, but I wanted to hit the get-together as early as possible.) Again, traffic wasn't bad, although there was a lot of semi-construction in Pennsylvania. You know, the kind where they have signs and stuff up but aren't doing anything? Got through the toll booths just fine (although I nearly picked up an EZ-Pass at an oasis on the Massachusetts Turnpike, I think).

Traffic wasn't bad until I cleared the toll booths leaving I-90 for I-95 ... apparently everyone is going south today, which means everyone is getting into one lane to head south on I-95. Immediately after a toll plaza. With traffic merging from both directions from I-90. not fun. All that for about a 500-yard drive on I-95 to the first exit. A zig, a zag, and I was at my hotel.

Good news: it's walking distance from Riverside Station. (Literally next door.) That is why I picked it: no sane person drives in Boston. Also ... yeah, nothing else.

Bad news: the hotel sucks. "Parking" is simply a semi-covered lot in the back of the hotel with narrow lanes for exiting and entering. It was designed poorly, that's for sure. $7 a night, too. Again, sucks. The desk chair couldn't be raised, there was no refrigerator (which meant no cold juice on the drive to Richmond), the shower (no bathtub) had a fancy glass door without a good seal, which meant water got on the floor easily, and the AC was crap. I turned it down to 68 and by morning, the room was at 74. woo. It was tolerable, though, considering I needed it for about one waking hour and six sleeping ones.

Unpacked, updated status, changed clothes (expecting a cool night, I was wearing jeans and a hat), and headed to the station. There were three machines that allegedly allowed you to purchase Charlie Cards or Tickets for the T. I say "allegedly" because one of the T people was there to show people how to use them, but with very little success, and I don't mean because he couldn't explain it or because the people couldn't follow directions. I eventually made my way to the front, slipped up to a machine while the T man was helping someone else, put $10 (5 rides – always buy more than you need) on a ticket, and headed up to the platform. (Bonus: Riverside is the end of the Green D line, so I couldn't get on the wrong way. lol.)

The T, by the way, is the oldest subway system in the US, and you'll know this as soon as you ride it. It's still getting me around without using my car, so I was happy enough. Got off at Park Street to transfer to the Red Line, eventually found my platform, and waited for the next train.

As I waited, two separate people stopped to ask me questions about the T. One wanted to know at which end of station X the escalator was (some stations apparently only have an escalator at one end), and the other wanted to know if the train was heading to Cambridge. I couldn't answer either question, and in fact, someone else had to answer the second one while I was puzzling it over. I mean, I've ridden the T once in my life, and that was to get to this station. I'm wearing a Portland State Vikings hat and a Michigan Hockey T-shirt. What gives the impression that I know what I'm doing? (Neither, obviously. I simply wasn't sending the leave-me-alone vibe that most veteran train riders seem to have.)

I get on the train, get off at Porter Square, and head for the exits. I get past the initial crowd and head up the stairs, slowly at first, then two at a time. Woo! It's a workout! I'm passing people consistently as I go up flight after flight of stairs, until finally I triumphantly reach the top and turn to my left ... to see another flight of stairs. Oops.

I walk toward my brother's apartment, and I discover another reason not to drive in Boston. There are no street signs. (Almost none, anyway.) Either you know where you're going or you don't need to get there. I remember the car wash that's opposite his street, climb the hill to his building (of course there's a hill), buzz the door, and wait for his dad to come down to open the door. I can tell it's him because of his walk. (He's my ex-stepdad, my mom's second husband, so I know him well.) Of course he's not used to apartment living, so he doesn't realize he can buzz me in, which is why I have to wait for him, and why I'm surprised he comes down the stairs.

Up we go to the third floor (naturally, more stairs), where I meet my mom (sigh), my uncle, my graduating brother and his fianceé, another brother, my not-sister, my brother's uncle, and my ex-stepdad's wife. (Not-sister because my graduating brother is actually a half-brother, the not-sister is his half-sister, and we share no parents.)

We hang out, eat chips and guacamole and BBQ and cornbread and cake and pie, discuss Tolkien and Galileo thermometers and suddenly cool weather (thankfully, the heat wave broke once I got to the apartment) and why my mom is still crazy.

My brother finally calls it a night around 9:30, which is great because it means I get back to the hotel at a somewhat decent hour. My mom and my uncle drove, so they head to their car, and the rest of us go back to the T. My California brother leaves first, then I hit my stop and go back to the Green Line the other direction, encountering the same problems with platforms. Once again, we wait for the T.

This time, it's interesting. A train arrives with D Line: Riverside on it, but it's not on the right platform. We all look at each other. Is this right? Shouldn't it be on 6, not 5? We get on anyway, and it turns out to be the right train. (It actually works out because all Green Line trains go through the same few stations in town; they branch out after that, so we could start on the "wrong" platform and still use the right track.) Back to the hotel, sign on, off to sleep in the heat. boo.