Travelogue

Hitting the RoadThe day of reckoning was upon us.

After showering off the gasoline that had poured on his arms and chest during the fuel line repair, Herb put on a brave face and said, “Let’s go.”

I have to admit that I was quite nervous about our chances of making it cross country without a breakdown or calamity of some sort, but if I had to do it, I couldn’t have had a more competent pilot than Herb.

Our first planned destination was my brother’s house in New Albany, Ohio, but since we got such a late start because of the fuel line repair, we decided that we would just try to get a few hours of driving under our belt and then get to Jimmy’s relatively early the following day.

Not another Travel Center Subway!!Knock on wood, everything seemed to be working fine and the Suburban, as it always has, ran like a champ. I kept a running text dialogue going on with Herb’s brother and our friend Randy, both capable mechanics, who were very interested, and concerned, with our progress. Randy considered our journey more analogous to that of a NASA space mission than a typical road trip, and dubbed our vehicle the SuburbanShip (the lunatic module).

We soon realized that finding places to eat and sleep were going to be a challenge, because with our 45-feet of length (Suburban plus boat), we were more like a semi than a car. It looked like it was going to be truck stops all the way.

We had our first, of what was to be far too many, Subway heroes at a Pilot Travel Center and bought a salad to have in our motel room that night. Fortunately, along the interstates, most motels had truck parking, so we were able to settle in at an Econo Lodge in Breezewood, PA, without too much difficulty.

Description

Making our way west on I76 through Pennsylvania to an Econo Lodge.