Monday, July 29, 2013

Through the Big Apple and Into Connecticut

(East Haddam, CT) Hi 84 Lo 65 -- I was really nervous about today's travels, but Jim didn't seem to be too worried about our trip on I-95 through New York City. We traveled across the northern end of Manhattan and through the Bronx, and the traffic wasn't too bad. But the road (I-95) was horrible. It's the roughest highway we've ever traveled on. We were warned it’s free coming into New Jersey, but it costs to leave. When we crossed the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan the toll for the car was $13.00. We don't know what it was for the truck and trailer, we used our E-Z Pass to zip through the toll gate. We'll find out on the E-Z Pass website tomorrow.

Since most RV'ers will never drive their rigs in New York (at least the smart ones), I took some pictures.

The Manhattan skyline coming into view in front of Tumbleweed.
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The new World Trade Center (1,776 ft. high) is plainly visible in this shot.














In this one you can see the Empire State Building, just to the left of the large electric line tower.














We drove past Met Life Stadium, the home of the NY Giants and NY Jets football teams.














We stopped at the last service plaza in NJ for lunch. This place was huge, and it was also very dirty. The bathrooms were the worst we’ve ever seen. The place was packed with trucks, and we almost didn't find a parking spot.
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We went under several overpasses that were within inches of our minimum height. But like Jim said, if trucks are on the highway, we'll fit.
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Traffic was at a standstill in the southbound lanes.
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My Garmin GPS sure looked interesting. It shows where we are.
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The New York area has the largest apartment buildings we've ever seen. There are a lot of them in this area.
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We finally made it into another new state for Tumbleweed. When we crossed the border, the road was a lot better but the traffic was a lot worse. We never dreamed it would be stop and go for several miles in rural Connecticut.
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This train runs along I-95 for several miles. Many people live in Connecticut and take the train into New York to work.
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The countryside got more attractive once we were in Connecticut. We passed several small marinas on the river. Lots of money around these parts. :)
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We had to plan our trip so we arrived at the park after 3:00 or we’d be charged an extra $10 on top of the daily rate. Isn't that a strange rule? We arrived at Wolf's Den Family Campground around 3:30.
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This is where the fun really began. The entrance appeared so quick that Jim drove past it. We were on a narrow country road and he had to back into a side road to get turned around, while I stopped traffic. Nothing like a little added stress at the end of a hectic day. :)

This park is very nice but it has so many trees that we can't get our satellite dish to work. There's free wi-fi available, but the signal is so weak it's very difficult to connect. And the Verizon signal is so weak that we have a hard time staying connected. We knew we'd run into these issues when we got up here in the northeast, so we're not bumming too much. We're getting a few local TV channels on our rooftop antenna, and we're limping along with the slow wi-fi. It's a small sacrifice for the fun we're having in a new (to us) part of the country.

Here’s our site.
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Jim had to clear some small tree branches off the antenna.
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A pavilion is to our left.
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A game room behind us. We’ll get more pictures tomorrow when we walk around the park.
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We're both really tired and looking forward to relaxing this evening with a BDL (that's "Big Drink of Liquor"). :)

11 comments:

Mike and Terri said...

So glad you made it through the NYC area okay today! We've been thinking about both of you throughout the day. Hope you enjoyed that BDL!!!

Fred Wishnie said...

See? It wasn't so difficult was it? Now you know you can drive anywhere. Enjoy New England.

Gin and Syl said...

We're in Maine now and will be heading south in a few weeks. We may end up driving that way also. Enjoy the BDL. You deserve it!
Syl

owensontheroad said...

Yay! So glad you guys made it safely. Too bad you are in trees :(

Donna W. said...

love trees hate trees. nice for shade bad for reception. our son liv es in one of those monstrous condo complexes in manhattan..glad you made it thru w/o incident

Gypsy said...

You got some good pictures driving past the WTC and the Empire State Bldg. Glad you made it through NY okay. I'll be in a much more rural part of NY, and of course just driving a little SUV!

Bill and Nancy said...

WOW...can't believe you drove thru NYC!!! We are in Maine and went out of our way, up I-81 and I-84 to avoid I-95 from Richmond, VA to Massachusetts. Can't deal with DC, Phila, NYC traffic:o(( You two are SOOOO Brave!!!

Gail Houle said...

Congratulations! Now we know it can be done...but we're still not going to do it :)

Paul and Marti Dahl said...

I always take the Garden State Parkway to the 287 across the Tappan Zee Bridge. This gets you to 95 by staying north (and out of NYC).

Karen & Collins said...

You think that's bad, you should be driving with us thru Alaska. We haven't had satellite in over 2 months & sometimes get our antennae to work. No real traffic but roads rattle everything in the RV. We did the trip you're taking 2 years ago. The traffic can be nerve wracking. It sure is pretty in the eastern states, especially in the fall.

Karen & Collins said...

Oh yeah! We have a BDL a lot of nights after our travels.

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