Road Warriors

 Three thousand miles in two weeks. My ass is sore and I never want to be in traffic again, but it was worth every penny. We welcomed Aiden into our lives and spent some amazing time with the girls and their families. The boys are awesome and growing up fast. Little milk pirates.

I don't want to see this for a while.

When we travel by car it's usually me driving. I tend to want to break some personal record in getting somewhere in good time. There is nothing sweeter to hear after a trip then, "Wow, you made good time!" It's a guy thing I think because Debra never attempts to make good time. Deb is all about getting there in one piece. She will travel slightly over the speed limit and mostly in the right lane until she hits her limit. The limit to her patience with fellow drivers seems to be about the three hour mark. After that it gets scary and I know it's time to pull over and switcheroo.

Washington DC is not a place to drive a car. Not even around it! In fact, we went WAY around DC coming back down and still hit traffic. Something about the area, whether it's just sheer volume, or sheer stupidity, just makes it a sore spot in any trip along the east coast.
Did you ever imagine machine guns popping up from your hood and you fire off a couple of rounds at a car near you? Not to kill of course but to disable the killing machine the guy was driving? Rocket launcher? No? It kind of keeps me awake on long trips. Sometimes I am driving a Bond car with all kinds of cool stuff like smoke, oil slick, and guns of course.

We had a whole shit load of traffic ahead of us one day and all the brake lights were coming on in three lanes. This son of a bitch in a little Mazda behind us saw an opening to get ahead of a tractor trailer and as we are all slamming on the brakes he accelerated and dove in front of the truck next to us with inches to spare and then screeched to a stop fifty feet later. Twin fifty calibers got him good.

Left laners were out in force the whole trip. "I think I'll just sit here in the left lane and pace this tractor trailer for a few hundred miles or so". One knob had at least a mile of cars behind him and as he passed a truck he would accelerate until he could parallel another one and hold everybody up some more. This of course makes the people behind him an angry mob hell bent on revenge. Something you do not want to do these days now that the NRA has us all armed and dangerous. When I got within range I shot out his tires and he spun off into the guard rail. I thought I heard people cheering but "Highway to Hell" was cranked pretty loud.

All this aggravation and raging people behind the wheels was very traumatic for us people who have abandoned this way of life for the really slow lane. To top it off we had a Prius to drive, which for some reason generates scorn and ill will from fellow drivers. Not sure what it is about this car, which was awesome at fuel economy but relatively terrible at acceleration, that people dislike so much. Is it because of the mileage? Do the big Ford and Chevy truckers hate the little thing because they are pissing away a gallon every ten miles while the little hybrid goes almost fifty?
We had a few mother truckers pass us, get in our lane in front of us and then slow down. Really? Cruise control come with that forty thousand dollar monster you only haul patio furniture with? One guy kept doing this to us for about an hour until I lobbed a smoke grenade into his truck bed. I then pulled in front and let out an oil slick. He's going to need that four wheel drive.

Getting rid of the rental car was a relief. Even at our current residence here in VA the traffic is horrible. We find it hard to even walk to the grocery store. I'm happy to have abandoned that way of life. Nothing but stress behind a wheel these days. Normally happy people become someone else behind the wheel and that goes for us as well. We don't like it and that's why we find a car to be an unpleasant and expensive necessity at times.

Here are my suggestions for a better ride on America's highways:

1. Cruise Control. Every vehicle has it. Use it. It's not scary magic that will make your car jump to light speed.
2. Get the FK OUT OF THE LEFT LANE! Cops have to start ticketing these people.
3. Tractor trailers should have a lower speed limit. Most accidents we saw involved tractor trailers.
4. Lower speed limits overall. Faster Faster Faster! Where does it end? Most cars do ten over and 80 mph is too damn high. I'm not being a wimp. I had good grades in physics. 
5. High speed rail and mass transit. We need it. I would use it.
6. Start investing in infrastructure not the pentagon. We are falling apart.
7. Relax people. You don't have to make good time. Pull over for a break and find your inner Debra.

Cheers!
PJB

We forgot how beautiful the green hills of New York are in the summer
Skip NYC! Go to the Adirondacks or visit Western NY.

Mighty Mason (Swab 1)

Beautiful Aiden (Swab 2)

Power boating on Ontario