We Aren't Ready to Be Old People Yet

La Buona Vita

It's lovely here, and although we heard rumors to the effect that last week was cold and the orange crop was threatened, we woke up this morning to Florida warmth and sunshine. This little over-55 community is made up of about 180 small manufactured homes in the 25-year-old range on a half dozen streets. A lot of the units are for sale at bargain prices; Florida real estate is a tough market right now.

Roomy and Comfy and Reasonable

For example, you can buy a house like this one, with 1400 square feet of living area, a corner lot and lovely sun room for about $80,000. Others in this very pleasant little neighborhood are available in the $60,000 range, including land. About that "including land" bit, that's one of the strange little aspects of these manufactured home communities in Florida. You can buy the home on top of the land, or the land underneath the home, or both. Buying less than both can lead to complications later, but it happens.

Holiday Out at St Lucie

From the quiet and relative spaciousness of the La Buona Vita development, we drove to Hutchinson Island to the close-quartered and frenzied Holiday Out at St. Lucie, a labyrinth of mobile and non-mobile homes with 1800 seasonal residents and about a tenth as many out of season. By means of a tunnel under South Ocean Drive, the members have access to a pretty section of beach:

A Pretty Beach Accessible from Holiday Out at St Lucie

"This is what you pay for," Anne told us, and she's right, but we wonder if just having a beach nearby that we'll probably ignore 90% of the time makes it worth living cheek by jowl when a short drive inland offers lots more elbow room for a lot less money.

Joanne, Kent and our hostess Anne

Seeing this old gent (probably my age) wheeling by on his tricycle might be the first inkling for me that if this is what being old is, I want no part of it:

On the Codgermobile

Anne Reardon and her husband Marty were kind enough to drive us the length of Hutchinson Island for a complete tour in their Kia Sedona:

Anne and Joanne in Front.

Mary Frances in the Middle.

The Marina at Holiday Out at St Lucie

At dusk we stopped for a fine New Year's Eve meal with outstanding and enjoyable service at the Floating Submarine Restaurant in Jensen Beach:

Your Blogster, Marty and Anne Reardon, Joanne and Kent Dumas, Adventurous Mary at the Floating Submarine

After returning to La Buono Vita full of good food and salt air, we were in bed an hour before the ball dropped on Times Square. OK, so maybe we are getting old.

The Sunshine State at Last

The Road from Savannah

A Straight Shot Down the Coast

I guess the odd thing about the 404 miles down the coast on I-95 is that not once do you actually see the Atlantic Ocean, although you ride pretty closely beside it the entire way. Although there were major traffic issues from Massachusetts to Virginia on day 1, and lesser but significant ones on day 2, the third and final day of our journey to Florida was traffic-jam free, and we found the beautiful little house in the 55-plus community of La Buona Vita in Port St. Lucie without problems. Our hosts, owners of the house Anne and Marty Reardon, long-time friends of Kent and Joanne's, met us there and turned the place over to us with the promise we would get together again at their place on Hutchinson Island, and here as well, before departing.

Wherein Kent buys everything not nailed down in Publix.

Settling in meant emptying the cooler and suitcases and accumulated mess from the MPV, so that Kent and I could go forth in search of groceries and, er, beverages for the evening. We found a Publix and a liquor store (thank goodness we aren't in Pennsylvania or some other state with weird liquor laws) just a few blocks down US 1, and spent $235 in short order on great victuals and as much booze as we thought our wives would let us get away with.

Admittedly, US #1 on the Florida northern gold coast has seen better days. As with everywhere else, the action has moved westward. But there is still a lot of business going on, lots of tourists and lots of license plates from New York and Massachusetts and Quebec.

After dining in the spacious sun room of our cottage on New York steaks (a la Kent) and potatoes and salads (a la Joanne & Mary) and vodka tonics and wine (a la Gilbey's and Yellow Tail), we realized it wouldn't be necessary to check out in the morning and head down the highway again. We are here, where we intended to be before the fates of weather and airlines interfered.

Kent and Joanne

Mary Frances, Kent and Joanne

Over cards--a rousing game of golf won on a tie-breaker by Mary Frances--we're discussing tomorrow's agenda. You'll know almost as soon as we do.

Richmond to Savannah, With Love

More cars than roads

If the traffic problems on I-95 that plagued us all the way to Richmond yesterday had occurred today as well, the four of us would have committed seppuku in the passing lane somewhere near Fayettesville. Fortunately for us, and for all the drivers who would have delayed still further by our life-ending decision, the delays were not nearly as bad. They were bad, but after yesterday, delays would have to be really, really bad to qualify as bad any more. Maybe that's why old people seem pretty happy for the most part: most disappointments can't hold a candle to disappointments they've already had.

Goodbye, Richmond

We had a few things to accomplish before we left Richmond, to wit: Find some scopolamine for Joanne's motion sickness; wash some of the road dirt from our faithful old MPV so we wouldn't lose it again like this morning when we came out of the hotel and mistook it for a pile of driveway plowings; and put some gas in the tank, which helped the car to move yesterday on those rare occasions when that opportunity arose. Patti Tripp found us a pharmacy, some ten miles off the interstate in what was probably retribution for ignoring some of her instructions. Good vision found us a gas station, since it was across the street from the pharmacy. And dumb luck, which is my primary talent, found us a car wash just before the on-ramp to I-95 south toward Savannah. By now it was nearing 9:00 AM, and we had 470 miles ahead of us.

Shortly into our journey we took this picture, indicating the ideal way to travel I-95--nearly alone:

The way to travel the interstate: nearly alone. What could possibly go wrong?

So we left Richmond quite the opposite from the way we arrived. With a full tank of gas, a clean Mazda van, and a revitalized Joanne, we drove from Virginia to North Carolina without a hitch.

Here's a view of the seat behind us, with Kent steadfast, Joanne happy, and...what the hell is that bearing down on us in the rear window????

OK, nice pic of Kent, Joanne and the threatening semi--but my ear?

North Carolina

Normally, crossing into the great state of North Carolina brings visions of the true South. But snow? We New Englanders didn't expect to see so much of it here:

The whiteness alongside I-95 in North Carolina.

South of the Border

OK, in North Carolina there were some delays on I-95. A fender bender caused by a sudden slowdown. A rubber-necker where somebody's car caught fire. But not nearly as bad as yesterday, about which we've pissed and moaned long enough. Besides, crossing North Carolina into South Carolina can only mean one thing, right? SOUTH OF THE BORDER! Pedro, amigo mio, it has been a long time. Almost thirty-five years, in fact, since we hauled our children and Coachmen pop-up camper through these same crazy byways in the bicentennial year.

South of the Border seems more corporate and less pleasingly cheap and gaudy as it was back in the day when our kids pawed through useless souvenirs after reading silly billboards for a hundred miles. Now the billboards look like Pedro brokers mutual funds on the side and South of the Border looks like a theme mall that doesn't really like itself that much.

Somehow the hot dog doesn't seem that happy. Maybe we're getting old.

Nobody climbs the South of the Border tower in December, it seems.

Waiting for food at South of the Border. It wasn't worth the wait.

Thomas Wolfe, the first one, said you can't go home again. I suppose you can't go back to South of the Border again, either, because you are not who you were then, and it is not what is was then, but one of us misses the other.

After South of the Border, the state of South Carolina is largely a swamp with a couple of popular beaches either side of Fort Sumter. You sort of get the idea of good things to come when you see this lovely bridge rise up in the distance:

Approaching the bridge into Georgia over the Savannah River and the Port of Savannah.

Oh, Savannah!

At dusk, we approached this beautiful bridge which is the highest span in Georgia and yet has no name [update: further research now indicates this bridge is named for Herman Talmadge, long-time Georgia politician from the days of southern gentlemen politicians]:

This beautiful unnamed bridge crosses from South Carolina to Georgia on Route 17.

Such a lovely sunset.

As darkness approached, we found ourselves in the lovely city of Savannah, and our digs at the Marriott Courtyard on Liberty Street in the Historic Section. After checking in, we walked to the equally historic Crystal Beer Parlor on the advice of our bellman, for a sumptuous meal of steaks and shrimps and scallops and desserts with liberal beverages. We even managed the walk back to our hotel without incident, had we been capable of incident, which we probably were not:

Well fed and spiritually nurtured, on the way back to the Courtyard in Historic Savannah.

In all, a good day, the middle day of our ground-flight to Florida, about which more will appear on the morrow.

Traffic from Hell

Thank goodness for friends who can take punishment.

Thank goodness we spent the time, locked tightly in our car, with friends whose company we truly enjoy. Because otherwise, it was a date with hell disguised as a traffic jam. Well, not one traffic jam, but a whole bunch of them.

But that's not the way the day started, so let's start at the beginning. Sleep comes hard when you're looking forward to a great new adventure, and when it will begin at four in the morning, sleep may not come at all. But we tried, and when the alarm sounded at 3 AM, we even hit the snooze button for another blissful nine minutes. But seven were enough, and we were up and showering and shaving and dressing and hauling luggage to the car and on our way to pick up our pals, the Dumases of Phillipston. Since we had decided to drive to Florida for lack of available Southwest Airlines flights until Friday, we were looking forward to clear roads, clear skies and easy driving the whole way. (Sung to the tune of "They Call Me a Cockeyed Optimist.") Sure enough, Massachusetts was a snap. Connecticut, despite receiving the Hatch award for Most-Expensive-Gas in the USA...

Biggest Ripoff on Gas Prices--Congratulations, Connecticut!

Possibly the biggest gas rip-off in the United States is the State of Connecticut charging 40 cents a gallon more than Massachusetts, who get all that Taxachusetts publicity.

...still, there were no delays at all, even though in many previous trips, particularly on the Wilbur Cross/Merritt Parkways, where those big gas gouges occur, and where we'd had a bunch of delays in the past. All right, we had left Dumases house at 4 AM, and nobody was awake yet, but still, pretty good.

We made the Tappan Zee Bridge by 8 AM...only four hours into our journey, and Patti Tripp said we'd be in the capital of the Confederacy by 1:30 PM...if we stopped for eats and gas and fiddled around...maybe 3 PM, latest.

Here's our second award:

Biggest Ripoff on Gas Service--Congratulations, New Jersey!

New Jersey and Oregon are two states--the only two that we're aware of--who insist on "full service" at the gas pumps. What this means is that instead of pushing your credit card into the pump, pumping your own gas and getting to hell out of there, some cretin who can't hold a job someplace else has to take your credit card, pump your gas and, eventually!!, get you back on your way. If you're on the New Jersey Turnpike (Route 95, connected from the Garden State Parkway after lo-o-o-o-n-g delays) the lines are long and the time may be 45 minutes for a fill-up.

Welcome to Delaware

It took four hours to get to New Jersey--pretty good!--and four hours to get out of New Jersey--pretty awful!! But when we crossed the Delaware Memorial Bridge into Delaware at noon-time we still had hopes to get the Richmond by mid-afternoon. What fools these mortals be!! (Puck)

Which brings us to our next award for incompetence in traffic management:

Stupidest Toll Booth Management in the Western Hemisphere--Congratulations, Delaware!

At the top of Delaware, which is the only state so narrow near the top that the Welcome and Come Back Soon signs could be printed on opposite sides of the same post, there is the only place in the United States which is a (part of) a perfect circle. In that small circle there is a traffic jam between the toll on the Delaware Memorial Bridge and the Leaving Delaware tool booths that takes about an hour to traverse ten miles. If they installed the same current technology of high speed E-Z Pass that New York and New Jersey have, along with several other states, their visitors would spend less time trying to get from New Jersey to Maryland, but they also wouldn't be awarding blue ribbons for nitwit management.

Welcome to Maryland

When we left New Jersey, admittedly we were relieved to feel it couldn't get worse than this. When we left Delaware, even though it had been worse yet, we were relieved to feel it certainly couldn't get worse than this. So we crossed into Maryland:

Most Incredible Delays With Absolutely No Apparent Reason For Them Award--Congratulations, Maryland!!

As soon as we crossed the state line into Maryland and saw the governor's name--Martin O'Malley--we Massachusetts types recognized the Irish roots of a true politician and knew full well that all would be perfection from then on. Oh, yeah.

In moments, we were in a slowdown, then a jam, that added an hour to our estimated arrival. Originally, when we left Phillipston, MA, the arrival time estimate was 12:32 PM. After a pleasant breakfast at Bruger's Bagels in Connecticut it was close to 1:00 PM. When we disagreed with the route Patti Tripp had chosen for us through the TriBorough Bridge and Manhattan (a decision we will defend forever) the ETA became 1:31 PM. After losing some time sitting on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey, it was in the 1:46 range. Following our slow traverse of the Delaware road to get the hell out of Delaware it was nearing 2:00 PM.

Now we sat in Maryland. Not in some interesting place in Maryland--we're sure there are some, although we are yet to see them, at least in season--but on a road heading west southwest between the Delaware state line and the city of Baltimore, averaging ten miles per hour for quite a bit more than ten miles. And our arrival time in Richmond, according to Patti, was approaching 3:00 PM. "Not too bad," I said over my shoulder to Kent, who was trying to find some reason to be nice to me, and to Joanne, who was beginning to feel queasy from the thousand-odd starts and stops and accelerations and decelerations.

Oddly enough, after an hour or two (seemingly centuries) of crawling along with occasionally illuminated signs implying things would improve after exit number 93, things did improve, albeit around mile marker 95, somewhere in the middle of a bridge, for no apparent reason whatever. And we flew past Baltimore, even though construction signs were everywhere, and we were positive by now that we'd arrive in Richmond by 3:30 PM, 4:00, no later!

Alas, after 50 or 60 miles on I-95 in Maryland, the gremlin was back, and with only 17 miles left to the Virginia border, all slowness, aka s-l-o-w-n-n-e-s-s, attacked again, and a 4 PM landing--did I say landing? Am I beginning to regret not flying? Am I losing it?--in Richmond, seemed in danger. But surely, surely, once we arrived in Virginia, less than a hundred miles from Richmond, what could possibly go wrong then? What possibly...

Our side of I-95 in Northern Virginia--those cars are not moving.

The other side of I-95. Those cars aren't moving, either.

Perhaps Northern Virginia was the worst of all. I-95 across the state line from Washington, DC, where things also do not move very well, is possibly the worst designed highway in human history; it is precisely the opposite of one of nature's smartest designs: the tree. A tree brings nourishment through a big trunk at the bottom and slowly splits it along smaller and smaller branches. Route I-85 in Northern Virginia loads cars in at the end of branches and dumps them together into a trunk which never exceeds three lanes wide until hundreds of branches are furnishing cars for that single three-lane road. It doesn't work. Mother natures laughs at its ineptness. Which brings us to our last award:

Biggest disappointment on I-95: Northern Virginia

We didn't laugh. Because we were tired. And because Joanne was threatening to heave on the driver in front of her, who is me.

Yes, we did arrive in Richmond, at our lovely Fairfield Inn on the Northwest side of the city. And we enjoyed a pleasant if imperfectly served meal at O Charley's, or Charley O's, whatever. But we arrived five hours later than planned, five times more tired than anticipated, and five times five times certain that our return trip will not include route I-95 anywhere near Washington, DC.

Tomorrow we're heading for Savannah, GA. We'll let you know how that turns out.

A Slight Change of Plans

Today it was our plan to leave for Jensen Beach, Florida, with our friends Kent and Joanne Dumas, spending tonight at Comfort Inn in Warwick, RI, and departing tomorrow morning at 6:25 aboard Southwest Airlines flight 3864 to West Palm Beach via Baltimore. A small catch, though. This:

Snowing, blowing, and 6000 flights cancelled, including ours.

Turns our our flight has been cancelled, and all other flights before Friday are fully booked. "Friday!" Mary F. said to the the Southwest agent on the line, "We could drive to Florida by then!" That's when the wheels began to turn. Imagine, no TSA frisking. No luggage limits, or schlepping bags all over the place, or finding out they went to St. Louis instead. No rental car. Making pit stops any damn time we want. Too much to resist.

So, well before the crack of dawn tomorrow we'll load up the old bus, pick up our friends in Phillipston, and head south. Our new plan is a three-day journey (one day less than Southwest Airlines, as it turns out) with intermediate stops in Richmond, Virginia and Savannah, Georgia.

We're looking forward to it. And you're welcome to follow along.