I’ve already given my things to be thankful post, but now after returning home I have more to be thankful for. Being home! The extended holiday weekend was an amazingly relaxing and enjoyable weekend sandwiched between two of the most awful road experiences ever.
Kate and I had decided I would accompany her up to school on Tuesday and hang around campus while she attended class. That way we could leave directly from school and already be part of the way up the New Jersey section of 287. A very sensible plan; which failed misreably …
Over the past two weeks we’ve noticed a terrible vibration or shuttering from Kate’s car. We brought it to STS (local car repair chain) who evaluated it and said they could find nothing from the onboard computer and they felt it was transmission related. We then brought it to a transmission center who said they could find nothing on the computer and without an error code it would be thousands of dollars for them to just open it up and “find something”. They cleaned some gunk out of the gas tank and said that might have been the issue and suggested we drive the car until a light comes on indicating a computer code they can use to determine the issue. For the next few days the car was fine and on Tuesday I loaded it up while Kate was at work so we could leave for CT taking her car, which is much more comfortable.
While driving Kate to school the vibrations began again. I dropped Kate off, went home, moved all of our luggage to my car and then drove back up to school. I got there just a few moments before her class let out and we began our trip to CT hoping for no more drama. Of course, that’s not our luck, and on 287 East heading towards I95 in CT I got pulled over for speeding. I admit, I was speeding, but no more than others on the road. I think that because I was in the right lane and had out of state plates I was easily picked out. Meh, whatever, it was bound to happen at some point. We made it to CT with no further incident.
The trip home was even more exciting! We got on the road at about 1:15PM and almost immediately hit dense traffic on I95. It took us three hours to cross the state of CT, something we usually do in only two. And then the traffic got bad. It took us an additional 4 hours, plus an hour to stop (making it five more hours) to get home. At one point on 287 West we went only 2 miles in a span of one hour.
We’re home, unpacked, and very glad to be home with our cats. Next time we travel for Thanksgiving I think we’ll spend an extra day after the holiday weekend to avoid this traffic.
Share on Facebook
Last 5 posts by Dave
