This is a continuation from an earlier post about my trip to Washington DC. However, the earlier post doubled as a college newspaper article, so there was some stuff that was either irrelevant or inappropriate to include. So here we are!
Right. So the fun thing about road trips is that you really need to prepare for them in advance. Notably, with sleep. This I did not do. Leading into my trip to DC, I had been working six straight days (whereas before that particular week I had a swisscheese schedule that never had more than two workdays in a row), the latter five being intense customer service training and transition days. So I was a bit... tired. There was some other stuff on my mind to begin with, but all in all I was just monstrously exhausted. I get home at 10:30pm, play some Rock Band 3, Bebel and I pick up Geyster, and we're off at about 12:30. To call it a nondescript drive out would be a monstrous understatement. We drove straight through the night, so even if we wanted to stop somewhere (that wasn't a strip club), we couldn't. We arrive in Silver Spring, MD at the Glenmont station at 8:30, hop on a train, and at 9:00 we're in DC.
Now, this experience has given me a much greater respect for the noble sardine. We got to the Mall and tried to get into the area between 3rd and 4th Street, but people were already so stuffed in that the cops weren't letting anyone in anymore. So we jump down to the Mall area between 4th and 7th Street, and... well, I don't know if you've ever been to a gathering of over 1,000 people (much less 200,000), but there comes a point where motion simply stops. I remember that we were walking, and then suddenly we weren't. What's worse, my phone was starting to die on me so trying to get a hold of the vast number of people I was hoping to meet up with simply wasn't going to happen (sorry Bri, CJ, Carol, Joel, Zoll, Monica, and Hyde!) But the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear was fucking awesome (they had Ozzy fucking Osborne for chrissakes), and it seemed really fitting that the rally was held basically at the steps of the Capitol Building.
So the rally ends at 3ish. My phone is dead. Fifteen minutes of pushing through the crowds, and we're still nowhere near the end of it. I turn to my right and see that people are jumping a fence, and turn back to tell Bebel and Geyster and... they're gone. Oh shit. I check my iPod. No WiFi. Double shit. After a brief bit of panic and scrambling to find them, I decide the simplest solution is just to make my way back to Bebel's car. I can't leave without them, they can't leave without the car. At any juncture, I took a few minutes to wait just to see if they were a little behind (or a little ahead), and kept going. I finally make it back to the car at 5:30, only to discover that... the doors were unlocked. Okay. So I, sleep deprived as I was, took a nap in the driver's seat, and awoke at 7pm to find that they still had not returned. I go back to the train station and at 7:30, they finally arrive, and we get back on the road home. Turns out they were basically searching DC for me, and Bebel and Geyster's phones had also died.
So we get back on the road, and I'm driving. The first half was just as nondescript as the ride out, but things... took a turn for the weird. For starters, I didn't know New Jersey had woods. And I grew up in a forest. So imagine my surprise when around 10pm I nearly hit a deer (and the car in the opposite lane, and the car behind me), after which point I couldn't unsee that there are dead deer everywhere in New Jersey. I saw more dead deer in Jersey than live deer anywhere in my life. Didn't help that five minutes later, a cop pulled us over because after I made a left turn, I accidentally bumped the lights to low-level, prompting him to see if our lights were malfunctioning. Didn't help that 1) it's not my car, 2) my license is from Mass, 3) my license has the wrong address, 4) the owner's license is from Illinois, 5) the plates are from Virginia, 6) none of those states are anywhere near Jersey, 7) Bebel handed the cop a registration receipt and not the registration, 8) under someone else's name, and 9) we were visibly unsettled from the previous deer experience. He lets us off, we get back on the road, and me and Bebel swap driving duties around 1am.
Not half an hour later, I slowly wake up to find that we're sitting still. On the highway. Still in New Jersey. After about 15 minutes of sitting and waiting, we watch as a car a few ahead of us suddenly turns right and disappears between two trucks. A few more cars follow, and so do we as -- Illegal Maneuver #1 -- we drive through an open section of metal barrier onto an empty on-ramp for the highway, with a cop car pretty much watching all this happen. Right. So we drive about half a mile past dead-still traffic and re-enter this hell. A fucking hour later we find that we're waiting to cross the George Washington Bridge. And so we wait in the Lower Level lanes, and it just doesn't seem to be moving, so we -- Illegal Maneuver #2 -- cross three lanes of active traffic at about a 90-degree angle to desperately try to get into the Upper Level lanes. Half an hour later, we find that the Lower Level has been altogether closed, so we lucked out there. Half an hour after that, we finally pay the toll and get the hell out of Jersey, at 3:30am. We were originally expecting to be home and drinking by midnight.
So we get going again, and fatigue is starting to set in. I drove for six hours before swapping, and Bebel was on about three when I noticed we were wobbling down the road a little. I take the wheel in Connecticut for about an hour and a half (of one goddamn road that didn't change at all), Bebel takes it for half an hour or so, and I manage to get us back home... at 6:45am. It effectively took us 16 hours to get home from Washington DC. It took less time to go from Worcester to Indianapolis. What the hell.
So somehow, somehow, I got to sleep before sunrise, and managed to not be a real corpse for Halloween.
it hurts it hurts it hurts
rickie-d
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