The good times eventually have to be
paid for. I think that’s some sort of cosmic rule or something. The bill was presented
yesterday for the prior two days. I had to relinquish the company of the Cali-Daughter
and the future first blog reader. The icing on the proverbial cake was waking
up at 4am with the onset of a fairly nasty cold that I had been successfully
ignoring the warning signs of. This combined for a definite down day. I’m just
hoping I don’t play Typhoid Mary to all those who were in the car with me yesterday.
Since Wingman was not around, having
successfully deployed to the Shire, there was no way I was putting my seven
month pregnant daughter on a mere train to New York City. I promised to drive her
straight to the Park Avenue hotel where her company is putting her up for the
week long business trip. News flash – a lot of people are also out driving on
Sunday afternoons. I mean, a huge amount, especially in the traffic wasteland
known as Connecticut with all too many being from New Jersey and all that entails.
My wife and the two PanaGals
volunteered to accompany us which meant a constant stream of conversation and
laughter emanating from the back seat for the trip to New York. My daughter
took up her role as co-pilot which was critical. As with most people from her generation
she was wired into all the navigational apps, including one that reported
upcoming speed traps. She had us dancing around the inevitable traffic jams
that Connecticut is justifiably infamous for. Since she learned I-95 was backed
up near New Haven she directed me onto the Merritt Parkway only to discover an accident
twenty miles ahead. Not to be deterred she had me soon traversing the back
roads ending up in a town called Derby and then back to I-95, beyond the
traffic jam. A comment on just how connected the world has become, while
wending through these back roads she received a message from Wingman reporting his
arrival in Sydney, Australia enroute to New Zealand.
Whenever we did run into
traffic (remember this is Connecticut) she would check her apps and say it was
a minor hold up versus anything that needed to be bypassed. She had three different
route options into Manhattan and then watched as two were eliminated due to
accidents. The third worked like a charm (although the FDR is not for the faint
of heart) and all too soon we were pulling up to her hotel, less than three
hours after leaving Worcester. While I have all too much experience saying good
bye to my daughter this time was especially hard. She’s going to be a lot
skinnier the next time I see her and it’s tough having her so far away for such
a momentous undertaking. I’m sure she’ll handle it like the champ she is.
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| My Two Co-Pilots Saying Goodbye Yesterday in NYC |
I was understandably concerned about
the transition of co-pilot role to my less than tech savvy wife. While my wife
has embraced technology, especially when shopping is involved, she has a well-known
predilection for going to war with the GPS system. My daughter preloaded her
navigation app onto my wife’s phone and wished us luck. To say my wife rose to
the occasion would be a massive understatement. She had us out of the Big Apple
and dodging through the Connecticut countryside in short order. We used the Merritt
Parkway the whole way this time and saw the carnage on the other side that our
daughter had maneuvered us around in the trip down. We were back into Massachusetts
and a very late dinner at Cracker Barrel in under three hours again. My wife
even consented, after a bit of discussion, to forego the inevitable shopping opportunities
Cracker Barrel customers are confronted with. I think she took pity on my
rapidly dissolving health.
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