We are finally on the road. I'm writing this from Speedy which is parked out back of the Stevensville, MD Cracker Barrel restaurant.
We spent most of yesterday loading Speedy and the trailer. It took longer than usual for a couple of reasons. First, we are bringing more than normally, since we are staying in one place for most of the trip. Second, it was very cold. Most of the time we load everything but ourselves into the van the day before, but it has been so cold that we had to sort out the items that might freeze. It went a bit slowly, but we got it done.
We finished loading and closed up the house early this morning and were on the road by about 9:30. The only hassle was the GPS. It decided to act up and we didn't have it for the first couple of hours until the first coffee stop. It had some cruft in the connector that supplies power while in its mount. After cleaning it out all was well. We knew where we were going anyway, having done this part of the trip more than enough times.
We took the usual route via the Mass Turnpike then via I-84 to Danbury (detouring around Hartford), south to the Tappan Zee and then the Garden State Parkway and NJ Turnpike. It was a gray morning and an unenventful drive through Massachusetts and Connecticut. The hightlight was an adult Bald Eagle that flew right past us across the highway in Middletown, CT. Ellen also spotted 6-7 hawks hanging out in trees along the highway.
As soon as we entered New York, things changed. It started to snow. The snow continued from there all the way to the end of the NJ Turnpike. Fortunately, it wasn't heavy and the road crews in New Jersey kept the roads clear, but it was wet. It was slow sloppy going. Speedy and the trailer will need a good wash when we get clear of the snow line.
We made it to the Delaware border soon after sunset and decided to press on for a couple of more hours. We have been taking a new route south in this area. We cut across Delaware and the Maryland eastern shore via US 301 taking it all the way to Virginia before reconnecting I-95 above Richmond. This avoids the Baltimore-Washington traffic.
The last time we did it, we just followed the default GPS routing, which angled southwest from the Delaware border through Middletown, DE (right through downtown, in fact). This had a lot of traffic and lights. We decided to modify it a bit this time and stayed on I-95 until it intersected with US 301, then just followed 301 all the way. It was a lot simpler and quicker. There are some lights on US 301 in Delaware, but not lots of malls and traffic.
We reached today's stop, the Stevensville Cracker barrel abuout 7:30 pm. Not as far as the last time, but we weren't dragging the trailer or driving on sloppy, wet, snowy roads last time.
There is snow on the ground here, but we expect to be rid of it by early tomorrow.
More then....
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