Moto Giro degli Stati Uniti: 5 states and the Bronx

Saturday August 1 Sabato 1 Agosto

Today was to be a "direct to our destinations" day without many side trips. We would start in Massachusetts, go into Rhode Island, then Connecticut and finally New York for CnC while Linda continued on into New Jersey. Clint did want to go to the waterfront at Newport, Rhode Island but so did the rest of the world so we turned off and skipped the traffic and crowds. Saturday at the beach on a nice day means traffic and crowds everywhere in the world. We were basically going south and it was a good thing as all day the traffic on the other side was congested and backed up. My GPS is failing, it has a touch screen that you touch with your finger to enter commands. The screen is activating commands by itself. One thing that continually happens is that the GPS wants you to calibrate the touch screen by touching it in several places. This means that the map display is no longer visible until the calibration is finished. More about this in a little while. After our attempt at Newport it was time to take the interstate on to New York for about 140 miles. There were lots of bumps which made my GPS activate some interesting commands. We stopped for coffee and there were 2 different stores at this shopping center that sold electronics so I looked for an inexpensive GPS to use on the rest of the trip but they were all the wrong type. So I came out empty handed while Charleen could not resist a Netbook computer at American prices which are MUCH better than Australian. We also passed several offramps that led to interesting sites such as Groton, CT with the USS Nautilus which was the US Navy's first atomic powered ship. Finally we saw our off ramp to New Jersey and turned off of I95 and made a series of freeway changes. It was confusing but at least we were not going into New York City where it would be worse. Or so we thought. The GPS routed us here, there and everywhere and finally we saw a sign "Welcome to New York City The Bronx". And to make matters worse we were stuck in heavy traffic all trying to cross the George Washington Bridge which is on the same exact highway that the GPS routed us off of!! We were being crowded by cars passing on the right and forcing us over. A black Ford Taurus station wagon came very close to hitting us. But I did win one when I would not let a Mercedes SUV push us over and he had to fall in behind us. His car was too expensive and new to chance getting a scratch so he backed off. The Ford Taurus looked like it had seen several battles and was used to a little fender rubbing. Finally we are on the bridge over the Hudson river and will have to make several freeway changes for awhile to get to I80 west. This is where I really need the help from the GPS. And this is where it continually switches into screen calibration mode. I have found it faster to switch the unit off and then on and hope that it does not immediately return to calibration. Doing this, memorizing the next instruction and a lot of prayer finally gets us to I80 west where we no longer need the GPS so it of course begins to work properly. We heard a very high pitched engine coming up quickly from behind. Two little three wheeled cars powered by motorcycle engines were flying through traffic and passed us by. I wanted Linda to get a picture of them so I took off in pursuit and finally managed to catch up to one where he was caught behind slow cars. Very interesting but too noisy. We have a discount coupon for a motel in Budd Lake so we are searching for this particular motel. Linda and Charleen are very good at finding these books and locating bargains. We find the motel and check in and it is a very nice room. Off to Subway for a sandwich, back to the room and an early bedtime. But first we call CnC to verify that they arrived at their hotel as they had to negotiate NYC surface street traffic. It turns out their trip was easier than ours which we are relieved to hear. It was good weather today but tomorrow is supposed to be rainy when we go to Philadelphia in search of the liberty bell. ~280 miles