Wow. What can I say about this last week. It started Tuesday when Andy, my dispatcher, calls me to ask if I want to go to Edison, NJ. Sure! So I pull another Quad Graphics load that delivers last Thursday. What a trip! Literally and figuritivly! Up until then, the farthest east I'd ever been was Macon, GA and the farthest northeast was Theif River Falls, MN. So Ohio was a new place as was Indiana, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The drive was the most challenging of my career. Not only did I have to driver 1500 miles, but I had to do it in 2 1/2 days which was no easy feat! But the scenery made it all worth it. Someone asked me, once, if I had a favorite state that I'd been in and, while all the states I've seen have beauty, Pennsylvania is my favorite!
If there ever was a "stereotype" that fit a state then Pennsylvania has it. Rolling green hills with white farmhouses, red barns with white roofs and milk cows everywhere. Pennsylvania is largly Amish country so the homesteads are built like you would imagine. 2 story with an attic, wood framed homes. It was like driving thru history and the weather was near perfect!
When I got to New Jersey I was pleasantly suprised what I didn't see. Smoke-bellowing factory's or dirty streets. It, too, was very pretty. After I made my delivery Thursday afternoon, I got the word that my backhaul was going to originate out of Hauppauge (Haw-Pog) New York. Hauppauge is out on Long Island!! So I looked up the place on my GPS and saw that the highway was going to go right by downtown Manhattan. Holy cow, I couldn't believe it!
Okay, so I head out that evening for Long Island crossing the Goethals bridge to Statten Island and then crossing the Verazano bridge that goes over New York Bay where all the ships come in off the Atlantic. That was amazing! New York Bay on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other. I came up thru Brooklyn and then the traffic started. Cars, trucks and taxi cabs...New Yorks "holy trinity". Driving slow thru Brooklyn, I saw inner-city kids playing basketball and other kids playing baseball at a small diamond near the interstate. Again, I saw the stereotypical graffitti, the apartments with fire escapes decorated with small, potted plants, the window air conditioners....it was every t.v. sitcom I ever saw as a kid. Welcome back, Kotter, The Jeffersons, The Cosby Show, Good times and movies, too, Coming To America, Beat Street. It was like all those places were really real, they weren't made-up places that Hollywood likes to dream up on a soundstage.
So during that traffic jam, I was able to get some great pics of downtown Manhattan and the harbor as well as a distant pic of the Statue of Liberty! If I had a real camera, and not the one on my phone, the pics would've turned out a lot better...I'm just sayin'... I went under the Brooklyn Bridge, which was really cool, and started my way out to Long Island. Apartments everywhere of every size and shape. No doubt they were full and very expensive. I will say that I now understand why so many New Yorkers don't have cars...but yet there are so many of them!!
Long Island was also a beautiful place that I woke up to Friday morning. Trees in bloom, a blue sky and perfect temps...I didn't wanna leave, and, until my wife wired me some more money...I couldn't.
That was the kicker to this trip. Just GETTING to Long Island took $108 dollars in tolls and I have about the same amount coming out as well, so, if you're gonna go to New York, don't go in a semi truck and, if you do, take lots of cash!!
Now I sit in Durant, Oklahoma with my load from Long Island going to the Big Lots distibution center here. I hope I get to go home for a day or 2...I miss my family and I need to do some laundry!!!