Physically driving out of NYC was quite the hassle, although not as bad as we were expecting. Brian was a great driver, and just took it slow...well as slow as he could. We did have to keep up with the flow of traffic. Other than a few missed turns, which resulted in multiple re-routings, we made it out fine. It took us a lot longer than we had anticipated though, what with all our wrong turns.
We didn't want to drive through Manhattan, so we picked a route that took us north through Queens across the Triboro Bridge/Robert F. Kennedy Bridge into the Bronx. Driving across the giant suspension bridges was a treat...at least for me. Brian had a white knuckle grip on the wheel most of the time we were in the city. I tried to focus on navigating, but when you have a view like the one below, you've gotta take a moment.
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| Triboro Bridge/Robert F. Kennedy Bridge |
While on the Triboro Bridge, we drove by Hell Gate Bridge (formerly known as the East River Arch Bridge). We had a view of it from our apartment building's roof and I always wondered what it was. This bridge is 1017 feet long and is a steel through arch railroad bridge.
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| Hell Gate Bridge |
We also had a pretty good view of upper Manhattan on the opposite side as the railroad bridge.
Driving through the Bronx was fairly un-eventful, just a bit stressful with all the traffic...and missing our turns.
We never made it to a game at Yankee Stadium, but we got to drive by it on the way across the Bronx.
On the west side of the Bronx we came to the George Washington Bridge, which we got to drive over. Again, it was a very cool.
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| George Washington Bridge |
I love suspension bridges. I think they're just the neatest thing.
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| George Washington Bridge |
The George Washington Bridge spans the Hudson River, which divides NYC from New Jersey.
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| Hudson River |
I could be wrong, but while in New York we always sensed a general dislike of New Jersey. Not sure why. I think it's the same way people from New Jersey feel about New York. Some weird feud of neighboring states or something? I don't feel one way or the other, probably because we never really got into New Jersey much. Our route took us across the northern end of the state and it was really pretty. I definitely could see why they call it the garden state.
One of many things we did during our drive to pass the time, was to look up facts about the states we were driving through.
New Jersey Facts:
- 3rd state to join the Union
- 4th smallest and 11th most populous
- State bird is the eastern goldfinch
- State insect is the honeybee
- State mammal is the horse
- State flower is the purple violet
- State tree is the northern red oak
- New Jersey was named by James, Duke of York, King Charles II of England's brother. The king gave New Jersey to James, who named the colony New Jersey to honor Sir George Carteret, who had been the Governor of Jersey, a British island in the English Channel.
New Jersey isn't that big, so after an hour and a half of driving we crossed the Delaware River and were in Pennsylvania. Sorry no picture of the river...I wasn't fast enough getting a camera out.
Pennsylvania State Facts:
- 2nd state to join the Union
- 33rd largest and 6th most populous
- State bird is the ruffed grouse
- State insects are the ladybug and firefly
- State beverage is milk (yes some states have an official beverage)
- State dog is the great dane
- State flower is the mountain laurel
- State tree is the eastern hemlock
- Pennsylvania was named after Admiral William Penn and his son William Penn, the state's founder
- Nicknamed the Keystone State
The only downside about our drive across Pennsylvania was the rain...and boy did it rain. I don't think I've been in such a crazy heavy rainstorm for a very long time, if at all. It would start out as a light drizzle and then all of the sudden...BAM we were hit with monsoon sheets of rain that was so thick and falling so hard that I thought it was hailing. We could barely see the road at times which was super scary, especially since we were in a moving truck. The highways was covered with a good two to three inches of water. There was so much water coming down, that it couldn't drain off the road fast enough. Brian slowed way down, I don't even think we were going 40 mph, and turned on his hazard lights. He was white-knuckling the wheel, and I was white-knuckling the door handle. I just sat there and prayed the whole way through the storm that we would make it and that Brian would be able to keep sight of the lines on the road.
For a good chunk of it we stayed well behind a semi truck in front of us. His lights were the only thing we could see at times. Finally the rain lightened up, but only for about ten minutes, then we headed back into another doozy of a storm. We hit rainstorm after rainstorm across the majority of the state. It was a super scary experience.
In between two of the storms, we stopped to gas up, grab a quick lunch at a nearby subway restaurant, and take a break from driving. We were pretty tense, so it was nice to take a break and try to relax and unclench our jaws. I snapped the picture below from the parking lot as we were about to start driving again. You can see how ominous the clouds were.
Eventually we made it past the worst of all the rain, but it was still overcast the rest of the way across the state and we did run into a few patches of sprinkling rain. In eastern Pennsylvania we started to see a few cornfields.
Brian did such an amazing job driving through all of the rain. I'm glad it was him and not me!
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| Susquehanna River |
Twice.
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| West Branch Susquehanna River |
Other than some road work that delayed us for about 20 minutes, the rest of Pennsylvania was pretty calm. We didn't drive through any major cities in Pennsylvania, but we did pass by signs for them, including this one to Pittsburgh.
The closer we got to Ohio, the more the clouds dissipated. We were so happy to see sunshine again.
As soon as we crossed into Ohio, the land changed a little. There weren't as many trees or hills, and although the trees were really green, they didn't have the same lushness about them as the forests of Penn.
Ohio State Facts:
- 17th state admitted to the Union
- It's the 34th largest state by area and the 7th most populous
- State bird is the cardinal
- State flower is the scarlet carnation
- State insect is the ladybug
- State tree is Buckeye
- State beverage is tomato juice
- It is the only state whose flag is not rectangle
- Ohio comes from the Iroquois word meaning "good river" or "large river"
- Nicknamed the Buckeye State
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| Meander Creek Reservoir |
The trouble we had getting out of New York, and Pennsylvania's rain and road work slowed us down quite a bit. Our planned drive time of 8 1/2 hours turned into a 12 hour drive. We got a nice view of an Ohio sunset as we continued along the highway.
We rolled in Columbus, exhausted and grateful to be done driving for the day. We checked into our Days Inn Hotel and fell asleep very fast. Although not perfect, Day 1 was a success (570+ miles and four states) and it was over.
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