Road Trip: Part 1 - The Rainy Drive Up

I set out early on Friday since I know I like to break up the length of my road trips with some stop overs at Service Areas and such, it's nice to take a break from driving every few hours and stretch your legs, use a nice bathroom and maybe grab a cute stuffed animal from the gift shop or a nice cup of coffee. So since Google told me it would be about 7 hours of a drive, I figure if I'm aiming to arrive at the BUF airport at 5PM leaving at 8 or 9AM should give me plenty of time.

So, I pack up, get the car gassed up and me properly caffeinated and get the hell outta dodge. Traffic was the least of my problems, however the weather up 91 and consequently the Mass Pike was atrocious. It was raining buckets so it made watching the roads and navigating a bit difficult. However, despite this, I was still able to take a few calls from Clive checking up on me and letting me know when he was boarding his plane and taking off, so that was nice.

One question though, why do the Mass Pike signs all feature a little pilgrim's hat? It's adorable and normally I don't scoff at anything cute, but really...a pilgrim's hat? You're a massive highway system and it's represented by a cute little pilgrim's hat? *sigh*New England, c'mon...

Another great thing was that once you got on the I-90 you got a nice seat to the beauty of New York state. It was so awesome to see all these vast farms and tractors, all in New York. It felt like I had been transplanted to Iowa or something, I didn't expect New York State to be so rural. But despite this ruralness, there were a bunch of great Service Areas along the way. All featuring great bathrooms and restaurants and each having a slightly unique spin of their own. Some featured history lessons in the form of big signs, some even had little separate houses where you could get a bunch of maps and learn a little about where you were.

By this time the sun had finally burned through the clouds and I could really set about enjoying the ride and try to keep the butterflies in my stomach at bay as I pick up Clive from the airport. All those same emotions coming up again: will we get along OK, will those sparks still be there, how will this month of living together really work out, will the cops get called...things like that. Hehehehe...