Day 9 Road Trip Somers PT. NJ to Norfolk VA: 98:19

Somers Pt,NJ to Norfolk, VA: 201 Miles 5 hrs 30 min

We kissed everyone goodbye this morning and took off for home at 8 am this morning. Our plan is to divide the two-day trip into two 6 hour segments with a rest stop three hours into each day's journey. Today we planned to go From Sommer's Point in New Jersey, Stop for a stretch and some food at Cape May, New Jersey, then catch a ferry to take us to across the Delaware Bay. From there we would drive along the Delaware coast, and take the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel to Virginia where we had made a hotel reservation to spend the night in Norfolk, VA.

Cape May is only 2 1/2 hours from Somers Point, so it made a good rest stop for the first half of the journey. It is a cute resort town with lots of well preserved Victorian homes. 

We spent the hour we had before we had to board the ferry walking around the shops on the main street.

Day 6 Road Trip: Somers Pt., New Jersey: 8 ' 19

From Piscataway where Bruce's sister lives to Somer's Point where his daughter and her family live, is about a two-hour drive. 

Piscataway, NJ  to Somers Point, NJ : 109 miles 1 hr 38 min.

 We made the trip without incident and arrived at their doorstep at about 4 pm. 

Bruce's  Daughter Laura, and our three of  our grandkids

 The grandkids were really happy to see us and talked our ears off. 

Puppy 'Cody' wanted  to be in the photos too

Bruce's daughter did all the driving for the next couple of days which reduced the stress of trying to navigate an unfamiliar area.

Day 3 Road Trip: Piscataway: 8 '19

Pam's Beautiful Garden

Day 3: Aug 9 Bruce and I were both exhausted after yesterday's long drive. While Bruce and his sister, Pam, were very happy to see one another, she too had had a long day on Thursday, so the three of us wound up going to bed relatively early on Thursday. We awoke to a beautiful sunny morning with a lovely cooling breeze. It was way too lovely a day to waste sitting around indoors so Bruce proposed we all get some exercise by pulling some weeds that were starting to sprout in Pam's beautiful flower garden. He said it felt really good to bend, and stretch, and to use his muscles to pull out all those out of place plants the summer rains had spouted. When we finished, the three of us were more than willing to sit on a swing in the shade, sipping a glass of cool water, and admire our day's efforts, before getting ready to accompany Pam to Friday evening services at her Temple.

Day Two Road Trip: Richmond VA to Piscataway, NJ: 8 '19

Richmond to Piscataway: 310 miles, 5 hours

Driving through yesterday's thunderstorm left us really tired, so we made sure we got a full night's sleep, ate a good breakfast and drank a lot of coffee this morning. Before hitting the road today, we made sure we had food and drink close at hand, had funds in our easy pass account, and double-checked the routes we would be taking so there would not be guessing which direction to go when we came to a fork in the road. That kind of preparedness kept our blood sugar level even and reduced a lot of directional guesswork.

Fortunately, even though Bruce and I had started out apprehensive about whether we would remember our rush-hour freeway traffic skills, we have not. While we did encounter very heavy traffic on Richmond's, Baltimore's, and Piscataway's turnpikes, we made it without incident from Richmond to Piscataway.

Bruce's sister Pam wasn't home yet when we arrived.  We let ourselves in with the house key she had sent us, carted our luggage into the guest room, and spent the next hour sipping a refreshing glass of cool water on Pam's Patio and enjoying the fresh air and her beautiful garden.

We were both happy to arrive at our destination and get out of the car.

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