Day One Road Trip Home to Richmond VA 8 '19

Loaded up

Today was day one of a ten-day trip to New Jersey and back again. Bruce has spent the past month planning this trip to see some of his relatives. It has been a long time since we have taken a long multi-day trip in a car. We were both nervous about going so far from home as we both knew that there are a lot of things that could go wrong. Our vehicles are starting to show their age and might have a breakdown. More importantly, we too are both getting older, and might find a long drive a lot more taxing on our bodies than it would have been when we were younger Still, at some point, you have to stop letting the fear of all of the problems that might arise control of your life, and start doing what is important to you. 

Just to be on the safe side, and to alleviate some of our anxiety about all the 'what ifs' this-that-or-the-other, we did a lot of contingency planning. We tried to think of the most likely problems that could arise and pack whatever we might need to have on hand to deal with it.

For example: 

• Just in case we are in an accident and he is severely injured: I packed a folder with all of our medical records, doctors names, and phone numbers, copies of his medical scripts. and legal paperwork for our health advocate authorization ). 
• Just in case we have engine trouble to we get stuck in traffic and our glucose levels drop or we get dehydrated. I packed food for the road and lots of hot and cold drinks. 
• Just in case the weather is not what we expected and we get chilled or overheated.. we packed extra clothes to allow for layering. 
• Just in case a traffic-jam lengthened the time it took to get to our destination and sitting so long caused pain.. we set up a vibrating seat pad to reduce the pressure on our spine, and made designed the trip to be no longer than 6 hours drive per day with rest stops set up every three hours for food fluid and a little exercise. 

By the time we were ready to leave this morning, it felt like we were packing the world into our vehicle. As it turned out, some of that paranoia paid off. 

Heavy thunderstorms took dow the Richmond area power grid

Even though the weather channel had originally forecast clear skies the whole way, just as we reached the North Carolina/ Virginia border, a massive severe thunderstorm brought traffic on I95 to a complete standstill. You literally could not see the car ahead of you for the downpour. It also wiped out power to the entire area. When we finally got to our hotel hungry and frustrated several hours later than expected, we found that the hotel (and all the restaurants in the area) still did not have power. The hotel staff was able to check us in manually, and let us into our room, but the only available light was from the one window. After the grueling ride here, I thought Bruce was about to lose it if he didn't get some food soon. But after we had an impromptu picnic (thrown together from the food and drinks we brought with us) by window light in our hotel room, we both relaxed and began to enjoy the travel tale we now have to talk about.

The good thing about area-wide power-failures is that (unlike individual residential power outages) is that utility companies are usually quick to muster the resources needed to remedy the problem, so it wasn't too long before we had the lights on again. While the experience was annoying, our preparedness kept the discomfort to a minimum. So if this is the worst thing that happens on this trip, we will both be more comfortable in planning future trips.

Day 1 Start from home to Richmond, VA 353 miles 5 1/2 hrs