The Pros and Cons of the One-Day Roadie

So the housemate is now the ex-housemate; he moved away two weeks ago, and last Sunday was the BIG haul, the process of loading stuff into a rented U-Haul and starting a caravan to New Jersey. The caravan consisted of myself and the housemate in his car, followed by a friend of ours in his minivan (my ride back here), and the U-Haul driven by the housemate's dad with other family members inside. And so the drill was to stay in tight formation from Syracuse to Jersey City. However, we were dealing with a situation where we had a car and a minivan whose drivers liked to, hmm, shall we say, stretch the speed limit laws a little and pass liberally, going in front of a U-Haul that, well, isn't built for that purpose. That and the fact that, as the housemate explained to me, his dad has issues with staying in the passing lane for too long. Since I was at the front of the line, I didn't see what everyone else saw, but I figured it looked like the equivalent of a very confused set of Shriners cars criss-crossing the interstate.

And then we hit Jersey. My Jersey exposure is very limited, consisting solely of a hotel stay near the Meadowlands during a high school trip to New York my senior year. I have also kidded my best friend, a Jersey native, that the state is nothing more than one giant suburb. We came in through the Poconos, however; and so my first impressions of the state was, "Well geez, this looks exactly like Pennsylvania." I was warned that when we hit suburbia, I would know it, and I did, it was like wham, here we are. Which is where it got fun. I have long maintained that Northeast/Central PA Driver is the worst in the world, but Jersey Driver's not off by much. Some believe that Jersey Driver is worse, but many of them never had to drive around NE/Central PA Driver, so they don't have the frame of reference. That, and the fact that the jokes about Jersey girls not getting the memo that the 80s ended is actually TRUE (sorry, Courtney; you are the exception, happy to say).

So we wind up in Jersey City, no small feat. After the moving in process, now comes the fun; we're going to THE City, the Apple, Noo Yawk. 90% of what I saw in NYC was from a tour bus on the aforementioned high school trip and I never felt like I had the ability to just go wherever, mostly cuz I didn't. This time, I did. After dropping the U-Haul crew off at Penn Station, it was on to Times Square. Some observations from this part of the trip: I am never, EVER driving through NYC, not if I can help it. I have enough trouble with one-way streets turning into two-ways and back again going through downtown Syracuse (just ask that guy I almost slammed into the other day because I accidentally turned onto the wrong side of West Onondaga) and the university area. That and the fact that Walk/Don't Walk actually MEANS something in NYC. If that light hits green and you haven't made it across the street, you WILL get honked at. My other observation is traffic-related as well. We get to Times Square, and now that the place is Disneyfied, there's more glitz and less, well, brothel to it, although if you look hard enough, you will see XXX (if you're looking for that sort of thing). Anyhoo, one of the big deals now is to put up huge TV monitors to show everyone what's on ABC or MTV or whatever at that time, they even have what appears to be a projected image on the side of one of the buildings. Now, if ever there was something to distract drivers, this is it. Forget cell phones, how would you like to come up to an intersection and be blitzed with giant video screens everywhere? It's official, never driving in NYC. NEVER.

A bit of luck was on our side, as we just happened to run into a friend of the housemate's (in a city of 8 million, go fig), and he pointed us toward Little Italy. It should be noted, I said pointed us toward, as in we still got lost. After riding the subway to Chinatown, we walked back and forth down the same stretch of street looking for something and not seeing it. So, the housemate ventures out into the middle of the street and asks a traffic cop for directions (gutsy move), and we made it, and let me tell ya, I had some of the best manicotti that god has ever seen fit to be made.

The lone remaining highlight came when housemate's friend and I tried to steer our way out of Jersey City. Turns out housemate's directions were correct, take 1 & 9 to 280 and so on, but there were so many damn 1 & 9s that we inevitably got lost. Although, on one of the side trips, we wound up on the big skyway that goes through that section of Jersey, and I got to reenact the opening sequence from "The Sopranos" in my head.

So, travelogue now completed, you can obviously see why a trip like this is worth taking. However, it is not advised to do it all in one day. Getting up at 6am and coming back at 10pm isn't so bad in the grand scheme of things, except of course for the fact that I crave sleep, sleep, and more sleep on the weekends; therefore, on this occasion we had managed to make it all the way to Jersey, unload, and hop on the PATH to NYC before I would've even woken up on a normal Sunday. Now, ex-housemate has made the trip numerous times, and doesn't seem to have a problem with it. He, however, must have gobs more cash than I do. First of all, you're looking at dropping $40 in gas money, for a full tank to go there and a full tank to get back (hence, me not driving). You have to eat, that's another $10 per meal, probably, if you want to eat good. Then again, I have often joked that even the Burger King extra value meals in NYC cost 8 bucks, so good is in the eye of the beholder. Trains run you another $1.50 for each trip, and that adds up quickly, especially with all the train-hopping we did on this particular trip. Another thing about trains is the fact that I had never taken one, and I had to stand for most of them. For a rail-thin person like myself, this is something you have to get used to. Even with the poles and such to hold on to, I almost got thrown two cars back every time we started or stopped.

Come to think of it, everything is more expensive in NYC, it's a known fact. This also extends out to Jersey. So far in ex-housemate's New Miserable Experience (a little Gin Blossoms reference there), he's had to shell out $750 a month for a place that I would judge only a slight upgrade from the craphole I had in Solvay, and I'm paying LESS now for the palacial townhouse (a.k.a. The Riot House) in which I currently live. He eschewed cable because they were going to charge him $100 to HOOK THE DAMN THING UP! And when you leave the state, at least in the way we chose to depart this time out, you go through the Delaware Water Gap, where you have to stop at a toll booth only if you're going to the PA side. Now I know that Pennsylvania technically runs the toll booth, but it's all the same, you have to pay to leave New Jersey. Makes sense, get you one last time on the way out.

One-day road trips are not for the faint of heart, not meant for those who don't get out much. It seems to all be way too much to cram into one day, but on the other hand, I've been mulling a one-day roadie up to Canada for the longest time, so two things are obvious: 1) I don't have much of a problem with the one-day roadie, and 2) I need more money.