So How Bad Was the Traffic?

Vehicles from 7. Panzerdivision, France 1940
Bundesarchiv

We had originally planned to head back north on Thursday last, but...

The Nuke was on travel and Tuttle was working from home, hard to do with a one-year old inquisitive toddler running rampant through the household. As Tuttle had a rather important meeting to call into, The Nuke asked us to reconsider our travel plans.

So we did, leaving Friday morning instead of Thursday.

Not a real big problem except for the rain.

At 0400 it was drumming on the roof hard enough to nearly drown out the sound of the air conditioner (central air for those who want to know such things). How did I know what it sounded like at 0400? Don't ask, it's an "old guy thing." Those who know, well, they know. Those that don't, just wait, you'll get there someday.

Anyhoo.

When it came time to pack up the vehicle, the rain had stopped. Except for the mass quantities of moisture dripping from the numerous trees in the neighborhood, that was enough to sound like rain without actually being rain.

Car was loaded, farewells were said and off to the highways we went for the trip north.

I had thought to switch from the New Jersey Turnpike to the Garden State Parkway in the vicinity of Woodbridge Township in the Garden State. That way I could avoid the mob scene in the vicinity of the George Washington Bridge.

Now Google will let you plot a route, then email it to one's self (like via one's cell phone). If you open the email, you can see a choice to "Open in Google Maps." Which works, more or less. But then try to use that route via the phone to vehicle hookup.

Yup, fails every time. Effing Google always seems to ask "What route?"

So went back to Waze and rolled the dice. (And yes, since Google bought out Waze, the latter app had gotten worse. No more, "take this route because there's an accident ahead." Now it's "Take this route." No reason, just trust me. No thanks.)

Now the traffic wasn't all that bad, until we got to Connecticut, where if someone taps his brakes, so will everyone else, making traffic stop and start to the tune of "We're all going 75, okay now we're all going 10, then speed back up again."

As an experiment, I tapped my brakes at one point, nearly everyone behind me immediately slowed down, even though the car behind me was a good 100 yards distant. Something in the brain I suppose makes people react to the flash of brake lights.

Not a bad thing mind you, but if there is no reason to slow down, sometimes merely lifting one's foot off the accelerator is sufficient to arrest the vehicle's forward momentum to maintain spacing in traffic. However, it seems my countrymen are incapable of such reasoning.

So there was a lot of stop and go throughout the Constitution State. Let's leave it at that. Oh, one last thing, Tesla drivers are assholes. At least every single one I saw on Friday. Not sure why, perhaps because they think they are "saving the planet" with their electronic cars. (I'm sure the child laborers in Africa mining all that lithium would beg to differ.)

But I digress.

I should mention the beginning of the trip and the rain. Lots of vehicles on the road, lots of mist being thrown in the air. Trucks are the worst, all those tires. You couldn't actually see the trucks but you could see the moving cloud of mist which contained a truck at its core. Very scary. The first 100 miles was nerve racking to say the least.

New Jersey was, well, it was New Jersey. People weaving in and out of traffic at insane rates of speed. I'm used to it. But it always amazes me at the people who seem to have no concept of the safe operation of a motor vehicle. God truly does watch over fools and drunkards. (Sometimes one and the same.)

But hey, we made it home, in less than record time to be sure. But in one piece and with most of my sanity intact.

As for the GW Bridge and the Cross Bronx Expressway? Piece of cake heading north. But I observed the southbound traffic and I have to say, I pitied those folks, I'm sure some of them are still out there. That was me the week before. Two hours to get from the outskirts of NYC to the New Jersey Palisades. Going north? Maybe a half hour.

Dang. Well it's over, until I do it again of course.

Sigh...