Texting, E-ZPass, Deer and our Dears

New York State has an interesting thing going. To minimize the number of morons texting while driving, what used to be known as Rest Stops are now known as:

If just a few of the kamikazes actually accept this suggestion, lives will be saved. To give advanced notice in the hope the urge to text will hold off until the automobile isn't in motion, these promising signs are posted:

Finally, even the Turnpike Plazas are in on the act:

Good work, New York.

We've used E-ZPass for more than a decade now. Amazingly, we're using the same transponders we were originally furnished. With all the traveling we do, whether FEMA-deployed or wheeling around the northeast where most of the nations toll roads are, it's been a useful tool, saving having to wait in line to pay tolls, or searching for cash.

When you zip through the E-ZPass lane, the bottom light of a three-beam array similar to a traffic light flashes green, with a cheery Thank You message across it. Unless it's one of those new overhead jobs you fly through at 65 mph. Those don't say Thank You, but you do.

But yesterday morning, as we smugly zipped by waiting ticket patrons, the green light didn't illuminate. A yellow one did, and across it was: Low Balance. Oops. When we signed up with E-ZPass they took a few bucks on our credit card number and explained that whenever the balance reached a low limit they'd take another $25 until the low limit was reached again. Now and then over the years I've noticed the twenty-five bucks as a line item on our credit card bill and never blinked. All those Thank Yous over the years for making our travels easier. But now, what? Suddenly it occurred to us that it's all Target's fault. Yep, somebody hacked Target for the credit card information for every transaction from Thanksgiving to Christmas last year or some such. And we were among the millions whose information lay at their mercy. Our principal credit card, Chase, by law responsible for the losses that might accrue, did what they had to do and reissued millions of credit cards with new numbers. Including ours. And the hackers didn't get to use our card until it was too late for the number to work. But E-ZPass still automatically billed that number and sure enough, it didn't work. Problem is, we were already on the Massachusetts Turnpike and the New York Thruway and didn't know if we could get off without being chased to ground by troopers accusing us of trying to avoid tolls!

Mary Frances got on the phone (E-ZPass is kind enough to post their phone number at every exit) and received the same fine cooperation from those folks as we had received all along, although we would be billed a $5 fine when we exited next, which happened at the Route 88/86/17 about which I blithered yesterday. Considering the condition of that road, I should have remained on the turnpike to the end, and paid the five bucks there.

In the early morning fog today as we left the Seneca Iroquois Casino for our family in Columbus, Ohio, with a too-brief lunch with Mary Frances' sweet cousin Carol (Hastings) Lenarz along the way, we came upon three deer at the edge of the Turnpike, and slowed down accordingly, aggravating the car behind us . The deer on the pavement moved off, and we slowly passed by them as the other car sped by us. With all the acres of woodland beyond, why would these deer threaten themselves by taking breakfast at the edge of a dangerous highway? Suddenly it was clear. On a visit to Yellowstone National Park in 2009, we noticed the same phenomena with the elk there. Rather than hide in the thousands of woodland acres, the elk came to the lodges, and dined on the well-fed, well-watered delicious grasses that man creates. So too, the deer of New York and Pennsylvania and Ohio, come to the edge of the highways, where we clever humans run tractors and plant seed to create these delicious verges, the ruminants' version of first-class restaurant arugula salads.

In the late afternoon we checked into Embassy Suites in Columbus. We couldn't afford this hotel had Mary Frances not earned mega Hilton Honors points over many FEMA years. Shortly after, we met up with our son Dana, well known in the grunge music industry as drummer and singer for Cheater Slicks, a band who have rattled the rafters for more than twenty-five years, his bride Wendy, without whom many UPS employees would not get paid, and our grandchildren Violet and Victor; in total the gang pictured here outside Red Robin tonight:

Now we have that little cutie top left staying with us tonight.  Makes the trip so far worthwhile.