I drove down to Washington, DC this weekend to visit family. Washington's a pretty neat city and I could see myself living there easily. The weather was great and it was really nice being there. But the traffic on I-95 just sucked out loud. It was raining and dreadful when we left and that killed the traffic for about the first 100 miles or so. I won't go into the tedious details but suffice it to say that instead of the usual 4 hours, it took about 7 and change. On the way back not so bad. We made it in a little under 5.
I have a tendancy sometimes to, shall we say, apply my foot rather heavily to the accelerator when I hit the interstate, but the thing that amazes me is that I can be doing 80 and people will pass me like I'm standing still. Those guys, I stay as far away from as possible. A really cool thing is that now, my E-Z Pass works on all the tolls between New York and Washington. I don't have to stop at tollbooths any more! Just cruise on through. They even have the express ones on the NJ Turnpike - you don't even have to slow down for those! But those little pleasures don't count for much when the average speed is 30 mph.
Sometimes a teeny little paranoid crumb of my brain grumbles about how E-Z Pass makes it easy for Them to track my travels. And sometimes I think it would be cool to swap transponders with my other friends who have it. That way They'd never know for sure where anyone was. But then I figure, fuck it. Paranoia requires too much mental energy, which I'd rather use on something else more constructive.
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4 comments:
Traffic slowdowns on a road trip are the worst! You're stuck in the car for a long time anyway, and then you have to creep along and make it take even longer.
At least I had my favorite traveling companion with me - my son Brian. He played DJ with his iTrip both ways. So at least we had good music. And of course we stopped for Roy Rogers fried chicken, Cinnabons and coffee. Yum.
You know, WriteGirl, just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after you. And, you know, I grew up in and around DC. Lovely city, but the politics infect everything. Wouldn't go back unless it were to save my life.
Yeah, I'm sure they're after me. Or at least watching. Fukkum, that's what I say.
DC is certainly a company town. My bro and sister-in-law are very politically active. Both of them work in politically-related areas. They're always out for the marches and the demos. But there are also people like friends of theirs who work in the Library of Congress in curatorial positions at the Smithsonian. Cool jobs for very smart people.
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