Tuesday, June 2nd

Expect Delays

After I opened the curtains in the morning, I scolded myself for having mocked the weather man about that cold front. It may have been a little late, but it surely was here. The temperature was barely in the fifties and even though it didn’t rain at the moment, it started the moment I set out to tackle this day. I was’t looking forward to it too much. I had to get from New Jersey to Connecticut. The direct route, optimistically announced to be a drive of less than three hours, led through perhaps the most densely populated area in the country, not to mention an infestation of toll roads of truly epic scale.

Instead I vaguely plotted a giant arc around and took off to the west. The first destination was Princeton. The road gave up its motorway nature fairly soon and resorted to traffic lights that beyond any doubt were synchronized on red. How else could I be forced to stop at every single light? And no, at least for a while I really wasn’t exaggerating at all.

Eventually, the road turned into a proper alley—a line of grand old trees on each side and fields beyond—, crossed a river, and entered into a giant park. Traffic slowed down to a crawl, giving me more time to admire the houses that were indeed hidden in the park. Most of them were hideous concrete blocks as is proper for a modern university. Eventually, I sneaked past more ancient grey stone houses and even a particularly well-hidden half-timbered house.

I arrived at Princeton’s main street, Nassau Street, only to discover that the traffic jam continued in the direction I had planed to continue in, too. A quick plan B and I left town undisturbed. The little bit I did see of the centre looked almost European. Certainly, the traffic jam was.

I came by the river yet again. It was actually the Delaware and Raritan Canal. Even in this ghastly weather—it had turned to real rain by now—people were out on the canal in their little rowing boats. I shuddered and turned up the heat.

The roads remained busy, even when eventually farms started to appear here and there between the houses. A construction site forced me onto a detour along properly narrow country lanes, the sort that appeared in films about New Jersey, except in better weather (unless, of course, this was the dramatic finale that called for someone standing soaking wet in someone else’s door).

Now northbound, I returned onto a busy main road for a bit before turning onto a quieter cross-country route at High Bridge. The village was right and proper, its many pretty houses stacked along a hillside. The road dove under a railway bridge with an actual passenger train parked atop and then started to tackle the hill zigzagging through town with plenty of stop signs.

Once over the hill, it followed a valley, possibly Long Valley. There were more meadows here, less forests, and surely less houses, though, as always, they never really disappeared. The valley ran almost exactly south-west to north-east yet I had to get further north, so I left at the next occasion. The valley side turned out to be rather tall. A series of hairpin curves were necessary to get out before the landscape calmed down and returned to long hills with fields and bushes and trees.

A sign warned of ‘limited sight distance,’ whatever that may entail, and a narrow tunnel. The road first swerved through what seemed to be a recreational area of sorts with plenty of weekend homes. That suddenly stopped, down a ridge I went and there indeed was a tunnel. It went through a straight, tall ridge, probably a former railway dam.

While the road had ceased to be empty a long time ago, now also the landscape became busy again. There were houses everywhere. Outside Franklin, mine tours were peddled and a mineral museum announced. After Hamburg, resorts suddenly started to appear. I wasn’t quite sure of their purpose as the landscape didn’t look too exciting, until ski lifts started to appear. Vernon seemed to be the centre of this winter sports extravaganza.

It also was the last town in New Jersey. Things became real quiet for a while before a sign reported the Empire State and civilization exploded again. First town: Warwick, a rather wealthy looking community of proud red brick and white wood, the centre abuzz.

I reached a motorway, but the fun only lasted for a couple of miles before it was off again before a toll both was announced. In another ‘So that’s where that is’ moment, the free road pointed to West Point. But that wasn’t where my road was headed. It turned off and started to climb into the mountains that suddenly appeared in the mist. There was a river and a swamp to the left and possibly majestic mountains to the right. A giant roundabout with a road coming up from New York City was to be exited towards ‘Bear Mountain Pk,’ though whether that stood for ‘park’ or ‘peak’ I wasn’t sure. This, in any case, was the last part of the Palisades Interstate Parkway, a divided highway through, well, the park.

Hiking trails were starting every now and then. A one or two hour hike would have been a lovely change of pace. But while I had packed my hiking shoes, I had forgotten my Walking through England Equipment which would have been necessary today.

Another big roundabout marked the end of the Parkway and lead right into a toll booth. The reason for the one dollar fifty charge was a big cable bridge over the Hudson. I begrudgingly coughed up the money. The first free river crossing was another sixty or so miles north and even I wasn’t that cheap. (Plus, the detour would have cost around ten bucks in petrol.)

The view from the bridge was quite spectacular. The river was far below, chaotically framed by steep walls of soaking wet forest. The valley turned narrower towards the north but slowly petered out downstream. The walls grew in tall mountains on both sides, hidden in clouds. Beyond the bridge, the road followed the eastern wall, needing many twists and turns to not fall off.

As soon as it had freed itself, Peekskill began, a somewhat confused collection of many-coloured brick. It started an endless maze of traffic lights all red. This was all the worse since the afternoon rush had started yet again leading to fantastic traffic jams and gnawing on my patience. Eight miles on and I still wasn’t out of the maze. If I had to do this sort of thing twice a day, I surely would eventually snap and do something rash. Sadly, this probably meant that car-mad America wasn’t the place for me to be, unless I became unreasonably rich and while away my days on that waterfront property by Chesapeake Bay.

A sign proclaiming a fifty five speed limit briefly made me grow hopeful to have reached the end. But, no, the next traffic light was just around the bend and, yes, it was red. Only after the town of Mahopac, itself a fine collection of traffic lights, did the road suddenly enter into a forest. There was a lake to the left and a dam, making the now wide-awake cynic in me wonder whether there was a single natural lake in this country. Then another lake and, voilà, Carmel and the start of the next round of lights.

But after Carmel there finally was the sign ‘To I-84.’ Onto the motorway! It was pretty badly jammed, too, but at least there was no traffic lights any more. It was named the Yankee Expressway and slowly brought me to Connecticut. Soon it was time to leave again and return onto a regular road.

While mostly the same, hills and trees and farms and way too many houses, Connecticut had more lawns, each and every one meticulously mowed. Appropriately, most shops seemed to be garden centres.

The regular road turned into a motorway, then into another motorway, into a short traffic jam before the exit everyone seemed to decide to go off at at last moment from all the way to the left, across an unspellable river, onto another short motorway and into Milford. A few rounds through town in order to find the hotel, obviously located at the far end only a dozen or so traffic lights away.

The car keys dropped unceremoniously onto the hotel room floor. I had conquered the perhaps most densely populated area of the country.