The drive down was uneventful and fun. Callum and Antonia were both excited and the idea of driving farther than New York thrilled them. We'd driven to New York more than occasionally; to the kids, beyond New York there was nothing -- just the edge of the world. They played games and read and slept for a long, long time. (My son had had the not unreasonable idea to stay up very late Saturday night so he'd be tired in the car on Sunday. It worked).
On the drive South, there was no real traffic until we hit the Delaware River. From the bridge over that river south there were so many cars it felt impossible. It slowed the drive and made me nervous. We told the kids to be quiet and focused on how to get into the city.
It was not driving in traffic that felt impossible; it was the very fact of so many people on the roads -- a Sunday night no less -- which felt impossible. Where we live there are still not too many people. It is no longer remote or as rural as it was but it remains out of the way. There is no traffic. We know essentially all the people in town. We drive as though we might end up in the same check-out line with the people we encounter on the road (politely, in other words). And even in the whole state of Vermont there are fewer people than I believe we saw driving south on 95 that Sunday.
Our plan for Washington was sound. We would stay in a nice hotel, deeply discounted given no one travels to Washington the week of Thanksgiving. We would walk and tour the usual sites. We would drive home on Thanksgiving Day, assuming all Americans would be at home eating and watching football.
The entire trip went off without hitch. The museums delivered as ordered. The weather was cool but sunny. Shirtsleeves in late November is a treat. The memorials stirred emotions and hope. We found good restaurants and saw old friends. The kids learned a bit. I got to revisit the National Portrait Gallery, the best art museum in all of America.
We slept in on Thanksgiving Day. We had been up late watching a tribute to Tina Fey on public television (only in America). We had a full, big breakfast at the hotel. We steamed up the car and began the march north back toward home.
We'd told my Dad we'd stop by as we headed north, expecting to be at his house before seven that night. We flew out of the Capitol and were north of Baltimore within an hour. We were flying. And then it stopped.
Suddenly, as we headed back toward the pinch-point dividing Delaware and New Jersey, there were so many cars the traffic started to choke itself. It would thicken and clot and slow to a crawl. Large, electronic signs told us how far we were from different milestones and how long it would take to reach them. The differential between miles to travel to a given spot and the time it would take to get there grew and grew. The sign telling us it would take seventy-five minutes to drive fifteen miles signaled what was to come. Between Maryland and New York City the highway felt like an exodus.
Of course it was not a biblical moving of people away from their homeland. It was just normal traffic. Before that drive I could not imagine so many people trying to use one road at the same time, let alone on a holiday.
When I think of road trips my mind goes to old movies and open roads. I see vast expanses of open highway, sleek cars, travelers dressed for the road. Grace Kelly and Cary Grant. The reality is overburdened asphalt and rest areas jammed with harried people wearing sweats; no one wanting to be where they are but working as hard as possible to get somewhere else; a smell of frustration, anxiety and exhaustion in the air.
The final straw on our drive toward home was sitting for over an hour just outside the George Washington Bridge trying to cross into New York. We sat, leaned on the horn, argued over which lane might move faster and finally slipped our last eight dollars into the hands of a demoralized toll taker. We were already late to see my father and just in New York, hours to go before we would arrive. (Maybe New York City might consider waiving tolls on major holidays -- humanity over revenue for Thanksgiving?)
The traffic eased and we let the kids pull out the laptop and watch a Bond movie. They did not sleep. We pulled into my dad's driveway very late, stayed an hour and straggled home, arriving near midnight.
Through a number of errors we arrived to a house without heat. Twenty-three degrees in the house, we built up a fire in the wood stove and built nests for the kids on the kitchen floor. The kids slept as we dealt with the oil-man, who finally delivered fuel near three o'clock in the morning. Even with the furnace finally roaring the house remained below freezing everywhere except the kitchen. J and I pulled blankets around us and joined the kids in a pile on the floor.
Our exodus from DC was over, we were back in the cold north, it was silent outside and pitch dark. There would be no driving the next day. No highways. No road trips for a long, long time.
David Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe, Vermont. (c) 2010 David Rocchio
No comments:
Post a Comment