On the road again! The trip back to California, part 1

That's a wrap!
Welllllllll...not quite the California we have in mind...

We said goodbye to nearly a full house of guests at the bed and breakfast yesterday morning and by 11:30 AM, Chris, Sydney and I were on the road to California.


Swarm of starlings in Carlisle, PA


A Pantera on the Long Island Expressway! #70sflashback

The first day's drive west is always the most stressful as it encompasses the maniacal Long Island Expressway (driving experience apparently optional, merge expertise nonexistent), Belt Parkway traffic and I-95 through New Jersey (self-explanatory to anyone who has ever driven it). I think my blood pressure finally started to drop when we hit the Penna Pike, I-76 West. 

Forget the bed. I like being smashed into this tiny space.
Sydney eschews her comfy bed in the back of the Outback in favor of wedging herself into the space between my yoga bag and the retractable screen, and sleeps without so much as putting her head up until we stop for coffee and gas and a change of drivers. 

Still a lot of fall color in Pennsylvania;  rolling hills of evergreen and bronzed deciduous forest frame tidy dairy farms with iconic silos and even, occasionally, the old hex signs on the sides of the barns. Hay farms are dotted with bales that look like gigantic rabbit turds. I'm reminded anew what a bucolic ride it is through this pretty state, one of two of the most picturesque days of driving on our trip cross country via (mostly) I-70. I'm also reminded how much bigger Pennsylvania is than I think it is--at some 360 miles across, it's nearly a whole day's drive in itself.

Chris was craving meat for dinner last night so we found a chain steakhouse that also featured a salad bar, something we never see in the Hamptons. But, whaaaaaat? No liquor license? We must have looked desperate because the waitress offered,"If you have something in the car, you can bring it in and I'll get you glasses." Well, hey, we just happened to be packing a case-plus of wine, so...hooray, situation saved. ($15 extra tip!!) On the plus side: Midwesterners grow--and know how to cook--beef. But one of the challenges of interstate travel is that food choices on a route heavily traveled by cross-country truckers are dominated by chain restaurants not known for healthy choices (think Cracker Barrel, Bob Evans, Roy Rogers). So a salad bar option is a welcome sight.

Four tunnels through the mountains in Pennsylvania...a ten-minute foray into West Virginia...into Ohio and eventually Indiana. At the end of the ride, Sydney trots confidentially through automatic doors at the hotel (cue the theme music of "Get Smart") and is excited at all the new smells in the property behind the place, snuffling through a meadow where surely there must be a rabbit warren nearby...

Almost 900 miles in two days; 2100+ more to go. California, here we come...




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