Ridgefield to Cleveland. aka PennsylvaniaF&&kingturnpike-will it ever end?

Okay. I'm behind in my tale. It's Day Two, and I'm actually in Joliet, IL now after an 11- hour drive to Cleveland. I intended to be in Davenport, Iowa by tonight, but due to driving rains for the better part of 6 hours, I'm going with my gut instinct to stop. My insane drive to accomplish preliminary, arbitrary day end goals makes me wrestle with just driving on, but in my attempt to remain flexible, I'm stopping. Something said, "Stop." So I did.

Who am I to disregard little voices?

Okay, to go all Maria Von Trapp on you, let's start at the very beginning. A very good place to start. True to my typical modus operandi, I was packing the truck at the eleventh hour, actually until almost 1:00 in the morning. There was some weird voodoo going on, as I was leaving significant amounts of stuff with Scott and Jane, I hadn't bought or accumulated anything while in CT, and the truck was as full as when I made the trip five months ago. Huh. My friend David suggested that things must have swelled. I know I did...(curse unlimited access to great food and zero to little physical activity--hello, belly!)

So, at 1:00, I took an Ambien to try to get at least a little sleep before an intense day of driving. I know that you're not supposed to take an Ambien unless you can devote 8 hours to sleep, and I'd be lucky to get five and a half, but hey, rules don't apply to me!

At 6:45 I got up so I could say goodbye to my brother and finish packing. I intended to be on the road by around 9:00 to avoid rush hour, and to be able to say goodbye to my niece & nephew. As that deadline came and went, I decided I'd go for a final walk in the forest preserve with Jane, Lucky & Fugee. Got back from the hike around 10:00.

I was actually on the road by around 12:30. As I settled in behind the wheel, I was trying to do a comparison to my last cross-country trek. Definitely different. While I'm excited for my new job and to return to my circle of Bay Area friends, the bubbly enthusiasm of heading into the unkown of the first trip wasn't there. More than anything, I felt really tired. Could have been the Ambien hangover, but more likely, the major stress of the past year (or ten) had finally caught up with me.

As I left Connecticut and crossed the Tappan Zee bridge, I noticed the toll booth attendant glaring at me warily. Then it dawned on me, a guy driving a 10' box truck blaring Iraqi/Arabic music is curious. He softened and laughed when Fugee popped up from the passenger's seat to say hello. I guess most suicide bombers don't include their pet Weimaraners in their nefarious deeds. Doesn't fit profile.



Crossing past Sleepy Hollow, one could definitely see Ichabod Crane and maybe even Rip Van Winkle still in residense. Soon, I encountered the endless beast called the Pennsylvania Turnpike, a two lane-, drive-as-fast-as-you-can thoroughfare.

I know that, according to motto, I'm supposed to Smile in Pennsylvania. But, more true to fashion, I'd rather nap. It's pretty and empty and endless. From the Poconos to the Wilds to Ohio, it's trees, hills and more trees. A better motto would be, "Pennsylvania, Where We Carpet the Roads With Deer." Most of the deer look like they'd had their bones slipped out of their hydes, like Gary Larson's boneless chickens, but I saw a few that looked like teepees, legs pointing in an odd assortment of angles.

The seven hours it takes to cross Pennsylvania redefine mind-numbing. And in this trip cross the island, it was getting dark around four hours earlier, so much of it was in the dark. Without a blanket of snow to give it that Currier and Ives mystique, it looked like Winter inhaled all the life out of the landscape of brown, grey, sticks and stones. At least I wasn't missing much to darkness.

In a brief show of love from Pennsylvania, I was struck by a half an hour of an intensely gorgeous winter sunset in the Pennsylvania Wilds.





As the golden/fire orange and winter blue/silver faded to black, I settled back in to the numbing quiet of the Turnpike. A definite restlessness was hard to squelch. This, too, shall pass. A little After the Fall made it all a bit more palatable.



Cleveland Motel 6 left the light on for me, as I pulled in for the night at around 10:20pm. A long day, and as my brother said in an amazing, beautiful email to me, "Hey, at least it's 20 percent done..."

To sleep I go.