Day 1: Characterized by sweeping victories, with minor electronics failures, patches of fog, and increasing amounts of roadkill.
Even a road trip has to involve some shlepping (I’m about to find myself in places where there’s no Yiddish in people’s vocabulary, aren’t I), so there’s a Q train and Chinatown bus involved before we get to the road (well car) part. Walking along canal street, it becomes apparent that I did not pack light despite all intentions. I couldn’t really tell you what went wrong there, I’d like to blame the guidebooks (Brooklyn Public Library has an excellent travel section, FYI), but I don’t think that’s really it.
Victory #1 – on the road (I-76 West) at 4:24pm!
As predicted, the good folks at Budget tried to “upgrade” us from a compact to an SUV. When we objected, they switched us to a mid-size; when we still objected they borrowed a compact from Avis; they then informed us that the mid-size they were going to give us had the same gas mileage as the compact we wound up with. We think that’s a lie.
Anyway, we’re moving right along in a red Chevy Cobalt (with complimentary American flag sticker). Seems to be averaging 25 miles per gallon.
Fate (by which I mean Philly airwaves being too crowded for the Ipod radio gadget to work) prevented the special mystery perfect theme song from being the first thing we played (now you get to be in suspense along with Mike), but then fate redeemed itself by serving up Bohemian Rhapsody as understudy Official First Song of the Trip – you can’t go wrong with Queen
Snafu #1:
The handy gadget to make an Ipod play through the radio turns out to be a worthless piece of crap. This became clear near the start of our trip, but I kept trying it anyway every 20 minutes or so for about 4 hours. Eventually came to the conclusion that if it didn’t work in Cumberland, it wasn’t going to work at all.
Luckily, it turns out the car has an auxiliary port, requiring only a simple, cheap cable to hook up an ipod; our quest for the cable revealed a few key lessons:
1. Nothing is open on Sundays in Cumberland.
2. The only place to go for anything is Walmart.
3. The only place godless enough to be open on Sundays is Walmart.
4. The NY-area basic truth that everything’s always a hassle and takes forever and involves waiting doesn’t apply in Cumberland. Walmart, while overwhelmingly huge, had about 8 people in it.
While we’re having revelations, my ultimate theory that everything is cheaper away from the northeast has been busted wide open – gas was $3.98/gallon near Philly, $4.09/gallon in Morgantown, WV. What the hell, man?
Victory #2: Ipods up and running.
Road Kill Count: 12 (including 1 deer and 1 large, unidentified furry object, which should really count double). At least 7 on a very small stretch of US-220.
Also:
Its really freaky driving on a major highway that’s completely pitch black except for your own headlights – no other cars, no lights on the side of the road, no lights in the distance; there’s just the 100 feet in front of you and then blackness.
And:
Fog is a bizarre phenomenon.
Anyway, we reached Charleston around midnight, and were unimpressed (granted we were tired and cranky and inclined to be tough critics). Poor signage, poor direction-giving, and no food late at night except for the Hardee’s that was the subject of the poor signage and direction –giving (we never made it – I’m not entirely convinced it exists).
-E
