The drive from JFK to Cheshire (via Hell)

A great Christmas, thanks for asking. Just Bern and Mimi and our friend John. Very quiet and small, which I like a lot (not to say noisy and large) isn't nice too....The granddaughters and their parents are on a cruise somewhere in the Caribbean with the rest of Cathy's family. Tim was in Florida with his parents and brothers, where Mimi went the day after Christmas, flying out of JFK.

We started about 12:30 p.m. to the airport, wondering about both traffic and weather. My  mapquest told me to take the Wilbur Cross to Rt  8 and then down to 95. I hate 95 and was telling Mimi how much I preferred the parkways when she looked at her smart phone's GPS and told me her woman was telling her to stay on 15 all the way to the Whitestone Bridge. I was delighted. It's the first time in recent memory I was happy to have a smart phone anywhere in my vicinity. I find it annoying when you try to shake hands and people have to shift their smart phone to their left hand. Unlike cell phones, which usually reside in pockets or on belts, most people I know who have smart phones are always holding them, like an extension of their hands, another body part.

Anyway, we had a nice trip and I dropped her off at JFK around 2:40--pretty good time, then I started back....

The Van Wyke Expressway that we had so easily driven down only a few minutes before, now resembled a Yankee Stadium parking lot. It took me over an hour to get to the Whitestone and then, just as I thought I had smooth sailing, the Hutchinson Parkway came to a screeching standstill. I sat absolutely still for 10 minutes, gazing out at red parking lights into the horizon and beyond. I'd heard on the radio during that time that the Hutch was a nightmare all the way to the CT border. I looked around and realized I was three car lengths from the exit to the New York Thruway and 95. I sat another five minutes, trying to talk myself out of going against my instincts and risking 95. There is something less anxiety producing about creeping along two lanes of traffic with no trucks than creeping along 4 or 5 lanes of traffic surrounded by tractor trailers...I don't know why....

But I overcame my nature and got onto the shoulder and took the exit. For 10 minutes or so, I was patting my 'non-nature' on the back and telling it how smart it was as I whizzed along, all the way through the toll booth on the NYT. But then the White Plains exits came up....

I'll spare you all the tedium of the next 4 hours and 50 minutes. This will give you a hint, I never got above, 20 mph between stops until Bridgeport, which was ironic because in Bridgeport it really began to snow. Until it had been melting flakes and drizzle and, most of all, TRAFFIC.

Around 4:50 I got off at Old Greenwich and ran into a Mobile station to pee about a quart and a half. (I know people hate these urinary tract stories, but it was part of the Hell I was going through.}I then got into the car and was so beyond rationality I drank two bottles of water before I got to Milford where I pulled off into the snow covered truck parking lot and didn't even try to get into the Travel Center, I peed behind my car as a snow plow clearing the lot swerved to miss me. That would have been awkward to explain to Nationwide...

I didn't stop again until I was near both home and a package store where I got a bottle of wine I was going to need....

Snow covered roads from Bridgeport to Cheshire and stopping in my driveway at 8:17--nearly 5 1/2 hours after dropping off Mimi. Her flight was postponed once, she called Bern at 5. But she still might have gotten to Ft. Meyer's before I got to Cheshire. (Bern and I have several times driven to Baltimore or from Baltimore in under 5 1/2 hours...)

So, that's how I spent my day after Christmas. Hope yours was much, much better....
'