Interstate 95, Oh How I Loathe Thee

Again, we planned to leave by 8am, but finally got on the road a little after 9am. We didn't think it was a huge deal because the trip to Brewster was only supposed to be seven hours. Why we'd ever think a computer could tell us how our trip was going to go is beyond me.

I'm curious as to if anyone who lives in the NJ/NY corridor ever drives 95. From what I've heard since, there's no way around it. But the thing that killed me was the tolls. How can people on a daily basis afford eight and nine dollar tolls that come seemingly every half mile? I naively thought that tolls would be something like eighty cents. What do they do with all that money?

Sorry. It wasn't all bad, I just think that when you're expecting one thing and then get something vastly different it can be hard to stomach. There were some good things that happened:

• We got to see Camden Yards, one of our favorite stadiums, not long after we left DC.
• We're pretty sure we saw the new Meadowlands field, home to the Giants and Jets.
• Got very familiar with the different boroughs of New York, as we sat there and stared at the buildings.
• The boys finally got into the Silly Bandz craze. At the end of the school year it was all the kids could talk about, even though my boys really had no idea what they were or why, necessarily, they were cool but they knew they wanted some. Before we left Cincinnati, I was at Kroger and picked up a package, thinking that it would be good to bring out at our breaking point. And it actually worked for a while. If they boys didn't fight/scream/throw tantrums (all things that I wanted to do during the three hours that we sat in traffic) I would give them one silly band after different time increments. Just as an fyi, the novelty wore off rather quickly.
  

For people who are familiar with this area, it is probably comical to read what I have to say about it. The few times that I've gone to the city to visit have been extremely enjoyable, so I'm not knocking the town by any means. But putting five people in a car, three of whom are ages six and under who find enjoyment in antagonizing each other, with no exits in sight, it makes for one tense trip.

But by 8 o'clock that night we had finally reached our destination and there waiting for us was some great local pizza, cold drinks, and one cute little baby!