From Tony's House to Northern Vermont (September 12)
	At My Sister's House in Elon, NC (September 10)
	Return to the New England Trip Master Index

Driving From Judy's House to Tony Hirsch's House in Rochester, MA

Once again, when we got up on Thursday morning, the rain seemed to have slacked off and, although it was pretty much overcast, the driving wasn't bad as we headed east towards Raleigh on I-85/I-40. Near Durham, I-85 diverges from I-40 and we started heading northeast again, passing through Henderson NC and on into Virginia (state #7 on our trip).

After crossing into Virginia, we continued north on I-85 to Petersburg/Hopewell/Colonial Heights- an urban area just south of Richmond.

I have not been on this stretch of highway since it was converted from a three-lane road (with alternating center lane) to an Interstate highway. I've never had occasion to drive north of Raleigh-Durham or south of Richmond in over thirty years, there not being any urban areas along this stretch where I might have been likely to do any teaching or consulting. Just south of Petersburg, I-85 ends as I-95 comes up from the south and the two highways merge.

Nor have I had an opportunity to visit Petersburg since I was stationed at Fort Lee back in 1969. It might have been interesting to visit Fort Lee and see how it had changed, or try to find some of the locations that I was familiar with in the area, but that will have to wait for another time. In any event, I am sure that in forty years everything would be well-nigh unrecognizable and, of course, no one I knew would likely still be anywhere around.

From Petersburg, it is about thirty miles up I-85 to the city of Richmond. Even though I have been back to Richmond twice since being stationed in this area, I have been in the northern suburbs, and have not visited the downtown area. I remember it as being much smaller (and more picturesque) when I was here, what with the old buildings and the Rappahannock River running through downtown.

Now, however, it looks just like any other medium-size American city, with the same buildings, the same expressways and the same everything. I am sure there is still a uniquely-Richmond atmosphere somewhere, but you certainly can't see it from the expressway at 60MPH.

We continued up I-95 through eastern Virginia, on our way to Fredericksburg.

The drive up through Virginia was quite beautiful, and I explained to Fred how I'd traveled this stretch innumerable times during 1968-69 when I was station at Fort Lee and spent the summer of 1969 as a Class B Agent officer at Camp A. P. Hill just south of Fredericksburg. I explained to him that two other officers and I had lived in a converted motel for the summer, and how we'd gotten very familiar with the Fredericksburg area. There is one of those epochal events that occurred during our summer there that will forever etch the time in my mind; I recall vividly sitting with my two friends watching Neil Armstrong step down onto the Moon's surface in July that summer.

But I was not quite prepared for how the sleepy town of Fredericksburg had changed in forty years. The exit we always took to get to our motel home from a drive up from Fort Lee used to be just a couple of gas stations and a chain motel or two. But now, it seemed to be a major shopping mecca, with a big mall, lots of chain restaurants, five or six large motel chains and lots and lots of traffic.

We decided to stop here and get a bite of lunch, and so we found a Chick-Fil-A across from the mall. Then we gassed up and continued north on I-95 towards Washington. The traffic got heavier and the highway got wider the closer we got to the capital. When we reached the I-495 Beltway, we turned east to skirt the southern part of the city. Both Fred and I have been here a few times, so we saw no need to actually go into town to see anything.

We traveled east on I-495; there was a lot of construction between I-95 and the Potomac, but after we crossed the river and entered the state of Maryland (state #8 on our trip) things opened up, and we made good time around the Beltway and north to the point where I-95 broke off again heading northeast towards Baltimore.

As we passed the exit for the Baltimore-Washington Parkway (which parallels I-95 about five miles east), I considered taking that route, but I thought that the route through Baltimore might be a little trickier. Since we had to stay on I-95 all the way to New York, I thought it best that we stick to that Interstate.

But only about ten miles up the road the traffic came to a virtual standstill; it appeared that I'd made the wrong choice. Fred got out the map to see if we could find a way back east to the Parkway, which I hoped would be clear. After a few miles of stop and go traffic we came to Maryland Highway 32- actually an expressway that connected I-95 and the Parkway. We took that east and then exited onto the Parkway north, and found that the traffic was moving along very nicely. Had I gotten on the Parkway originally, we could have saved at least a half-hour.

Once we got on the Parkway, we had no problems all the way to Baltimore. It turned out that it was just a little trickier to figure out how to get to I-895 around Baltimore, but the signage was pretty good, and once we figured out that Maryland Highway 295 (the Baltimore-Washington Parkway) turned into I-195 near Baltimore, we had no problem following the route to I-895.

We turned east on the Baltimore beltway, crossed one of the bridges over the Baltimore harbor, and continued up I-895 until it merged back into I-95 towards Delaware.

We continued north on I-95, trying our best to keep up with the traffic that seemed to be moving along at a steady 80MPH, even with the presence of a number of highway patrol cars. And we thought Texas ignored the 65MPH limit! Just before we reached Newark DE (pronounced ne-wark, with the accent on the second syllable rather than the first), we crossed into the state of Delaware, the 9th state on our trip.

It took less than half an hour to traverse the northern part of Delaware, coming close to Wilmington. Just south of Wilmington, we had to decide whether to cut across to New Jersey now, or wait until we got to Philadelphia. Since it was late afternoon, I thought the traffic around Philadelphia might be heavy, so we decided to bypass it entirely and follow I-295 east.

I-295 east from Wilmington into New Jersey (the 10th state we've entered on this trip) crosses the Delaware Memorial Bridge. This trip has been different from most of our other trips in that big bridges have already figured prominently in the route. The bridge over the Potomac south of Washington, and the I-895 bridge across Baltimore harbor have been only the first two examples.

This bridge was pretty interesting, and we took a number of photos and movies as we made the crossing. Below you can see an aerial view of the bridge and some thumbnails for the pictures we took during the crossing. Just for fun, I've connected the thumbnails to the aerial view and you can pick out the features in the pictures with the features in the aerial view. Maybe the movies and pictures will give you the feeling that you were with us during the crossing.

So, first have a look at the movie of our crossing that I made while I was driving. This will give you an excellent impression of what it was like crossing the bridge.

Then, you can click on the individual picture thumbnails below the aerial view to see the full-size images of the pictures that Fred took as we were making our crossing:

The next two hours took us all the way up the New Jersey Turnpike (I-95) and brought us parallel to Staten Island. We stopped on the way to gas up, so we wouldn't have to do so near New York City.

I had originally thought that we would go across Staten Island, across the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, and then work our way across Eastern Long Island to take one of the bridges leading back to I-95 and on into Connecticut. When I was talking with Tony on the phone to tell him when we would likely arrive at his house, he told me that the route I'd been thinking about was a lot more confusing and would have a lot more traffic and be about the same length as a route he usually took when making the transit of the New York City area from the south.

So we altered our plans to follow the route he suggested.

The route that Tony advocated would take us around the north side of the New York City area, rather than cross the south side. Tony indicated that the southern crossing involved a number of traffic bottlenecks- from Staten Island to Long Island, and from Long Island to Connecticut. The northern route involved only one bottleneck- the Tappan Zee Bridge across the Hudson River- but we would be coming into the city and almost all the traffic would be crossing the bridge in the opposite direction.

His points were well-taken, and he certainly knows the area a lot better than I do, so we followed his advice, getting off of I-95 and onto the Garden State Parkway heading north through suburban New Jersey.

We continued up the Garden State Parkway until it ended in I-287. Then we took I-287 east, reaching the approaches to the Tappan Zee Bridge in about fifteen miles. Then we made the Tappan Zee Bridge crossing.

This bridge is another amazing engineering achievement; it is quite beautiful and carries a huge amount of traffic. The crossing was a lot of fun, although I have crossed this bridge perhaps six or eight times.

As soon as we crossed the bridge, we entered New York State for the first time (the 11th state on this trip) at Tarrytown.

Then all we had to do was stay on I-287 and cross Westchester County, until I-287 ended in I-95 coming up from Long Island. Just after we turned north on I-95 at Port Chester, we entered Connecticut, the 12th state on this trip (and the sixth state just today).

Now we began a 100-mile run across Connecticut on I-95, never more than a few miles from Long Island Sound.

On the first half of this run, we passed through Stamford, Bridgeport and New Haven, continuing on eastward.

The second 50 miles took us through New London and across the Mystic River, and into Rhode Island at Westerly. Rhode Island became the 13th state we'd entered on this trip, and the seventh state today.

 

After crossing into Rhode Island, we continued north on I-95 towards Providence. It was getting late, and we wanted to have dinner before getting to Tony's house, so we called him and asked whether he knew of any good diners along the route we were taking. He mentioned a place in Warwick, RI, called Gregg's, actually part of a small chain. He gave us some pretty good directions, and we found it a short ways off I-95 near the Providence airport.

We had a really good meal at Gregg's, although it wasn't quite like other diners I've been too down by New York City and in New Jersey. We both had meat-and-potatoes meals, and a really excellent pie for dessert. Tony had mentioned on the phone that they made the best chocolate cake he's ever had, so we got a slice of that to go for him.

We got back on I-95 north into downtown Providence, and then turned east on I-195 which leads from Providence to Cape Cod. As soon as we passed out of East Providence, we entered Massachusetts, the 14th state of the trip and the last new one for today.

At Tony Hirsch's House

Tony lives near Rochester MA, and we came to the exit for it about twenty-five miles down I-195.

Before starting out from Texas, I had researched the route to Tony's house, and so even though he gave us good directions, I knew the way to go. Tony lives in a newish development about two miles from the expressway, in a heavily-wooded area. Although there is plenty of civilization nearby (Boston is only thirty miles away), the area is very rural- even though many of the people who live near Tony don't work locally.

We found Tony's house with little problem at all, arriving there about 11PM. Tony had been to a Syracuse University alumni function that evening, and had only returned a few hours before we arrived. Tony and Fred have met before- when Tony and his wife Roberta came to Texas for a visit (about six years ago). Sadly, Roberta died a little more than a year ago, and Tony is still recovering from that loss.

We had a good visit and gave Tony a chance to eat some of his chocolate cake, and then Tony showed us to his guest room for the night.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	From Tony's House to Northern Vermont (September 12)
	At My Sister's House in Elon, NC (September 10)
	Return to the New England Trip Master Index