Back in New York

We have now returned to New York on our final leg of this journey. We had about 200 miles to drive today, all of which was interstate. Of course, Interstate 90 both in Massachusetts and in New York is a toll road so we spent much time at toll booths. It was special because I was driving and it was my first personal experience with approaching a very small opening with a gigantic trailer. I tried to escape my predicament at the first travel plaza where we stopped for a break. After my trip to the potty I parked myself in the passenger seat, but Gene put on the pitiful face and wondered if I might like to drive a little further. “A little further” turned out to be three-quarters of the way here. It went well though and thankfully the traffic was not too heavy.

He took over the driving about 20 miles before our exit, but we did have about 20 miles of side roads to travel before arriving at our campground. I’d rather drive interstate than side roads any day, especially through these small towns with people darting out to cross the street and cars parked along the curbs. We had one near miss today which could have turned into a real disaster. We were stopped at a traffic light in one of these small communities with directions instructing us to turn right at this intersection. When the light turned green, Gene pulled out into the intersection, which was really too small for our size and experience. Just as he was into the middle of his turn, a fire truck appeared out of nowhere with lights flashing and sirens blaring. On instinct, Gene pulled sharply to the right to get out of the way. The trailer tires rolled up on the curb and we were within inches of the overhanging porch roof of the building on the corner. Luckily, after the fire truck passed, there was no other traffic in that lane so we were able to pull sharply to the left and avoid tearing the porch off the building and tearing a hole in our house. Once all of our tires were back on the street and we were over our panic, we were able to see that the fire station was the second building from the corner. No wonder it appeared to have come from nowhere. In retrospect, we probably should have just stopped and not tried to get out of the way. There was plenty of room for the fire truck to get around us.

We arrived safely at our campground, which we are always grateful for. It is a huge campground with a river on one side, lots of trees, and wide, long, level sites. Tomorrow we will get ourselves oriented to the area and find the train station where we will catch the Metro North into New York City. This is going to be a fun week.