A day full of emotions....

Leaving was not easy, one needs to get used to the idea and reality of going
the chronicle.
Routes of the day
from farmington:
CT10
Insterstate 84 W to Waterbury
Route 8 S to Bridgeport
Interstate 95 S to New York.

Then, a mess to enter New York

I had planned a route that would get me to southern Manhattan via Brooklyn Bridge, but there was no way that what I encountered in reality resembled what I had marked on map…. There are various problems,
1) I need more detailed maps for complicated areas
2) There are not many indication of the various directions, thus one has actually to know exactly what he is doing. Evidently many people solve this problem with the satellite.
3) On a motorways you get to a junction which you do not expect and are travelling in the traffic at 60 miles per hour, you cannot really stop, the names do not tell you anything, what you do, a) you just continue on your lane and hope it is right b) you make a choice following your instinct and pray it is right. You have 50% to get it right, but if you have to make it 3 times, your chances to get to the right place in the end are just 12,5%….

I got out of I 95 and asked people, got directed to the cross Bronx Highway, what a glourious name!!! This took me again to the 95, they told me I would see sign for Manhattan, and the various bridges, never saw one, when I saw a sign saying “last exit to New York” my instinct told me “it’s now or never old man” "or you’ll just miss it". I found myself at the very north of Manhattan, 181 st. Hit south, found Broadway and drove peacefully my little red car in the middle of yellow taxis till Bleckeer street.

Lunch was very agreeable, as it happen I found out that two people that I know in NY live in the same building! We go to lunch together. Lidia I have not seen for years, she now has a beautiful she-baby, Clara. Conversation goes random about our lives. to problems with teaching, careers, etc. Then the madness starts. I have left the car in the middle of NY with all my luggage inside?!!!! Visible???? Crazy man! They’ll break the window. And you want to travel cross country? Rush back to the car, only parking ticket! Good!!! ;) In any case after collective discussion, phone calls and various weighting of different options, one of my suitcases is taken to an UPS and sent to LA. The rest can more easily be kept away from people’s view. In the meantime, Lidia took some very nice picture of my car.

The afternoon drive is quite straightforward, I set off from NY with good directions and some fears of getting lost around Newark airport, but fond my way with relative ease, and some luck, through Holland Tunnel, back to the I 95 South. I have booked a motel just north of Baltimore in a small village, in Maryland, called Aberdeen. You know I like Scotland. Sounded nice.
I got there by 9 30 pm after an uneventful drive.

I do not look at coupé car the same way I did before...

This is the chronicle, I have to say that the day was full of emotions, leaving Farmington, and this double edged feeling of sadness and euphoria of being alone in an adventure on the road. Then the stress of driving in NY and the issue with the suitcases… a bit too much for the first day, I am a bit shaken. Now I am in this motorway motel, quite comfortable, having a bath, they even provide a small duck on top of the pile of towels!!! Little consolation after the giant Jacuzzi in Farmington. Time to bed folks!