Blog Entry #1 Wednesday August 27 to Sunday August 31, 2014 – North Carolina to Oneida

 

This afternoon Jean and I departed Cary, NC on the start of our one month trek to New England.

8-24-14 Friends & family at send off party

Farewell Party at Cary, NC

On the 750 mile trip from Cary to our first official destination, Jean’s sister’s home in Oneida, NY, we spent our first evening in Culpeper, VA, about 30 miles north of Charlottesville. Considering that our 55 mph cruising speed relegates us to the “blue highways,” that 240 miles was a pretty good distance, as we did not get on the road until around 1pm today. Usually, we take Route 29 into Charlottesville. This time however, we took Route 15 which bypasses Charlottesville. Nice route with less congestion.

8-26-14 Entering VA

8-27-14 Entering PA 8-28-14 Entering NY

(From top to bottom) Entering Virginia, Entering Pennsylvania, and Entering New York

We reached Scranton, PA the second evening after negotiating a fairly harrowing path over a mountain ridge west of Harrisburg in our effort to avoid that city. The trip from Scranton to Oneida went peacefully; initially on back roads following peaceful river valleys and terminating on roads through rolling farmlands in the Adirondack foothills.

9-1-14 Jean with Elaine, John & grandaughter Ally (1)

 Jean with Elaine, John, and Granddaughter Ally

Jean and I arrived mostly incident free at the home of her younger sister Elaine in Oneida, NY the afternoon of Monday, August 28th. I say “mostly” because we did have one close call exiting an off- ramp on to a 2- lane highway in Virginia. Apparently (and we subsequently verified this at other intersections), they ran out of “yield” signs; so we merrily came off an off-ramp anticipating a merging lane for the intersecting highway. Not so; we found ourselves merging into the side of a car traveling in our direction in the main lane of travel. Fortunately, they were alert and drove us to a braking stance with a prolonged blast of their horn as they came alongside. No  harm, no foul; but it did get the blood flowing. Other than that the Willys performed flawlessly (albeit within the limits of its performance).

We had a restful stay at the home of Elaine and her longstanding companion John. John is a Jeep guy, having three early models in various degrees of roadworthiness. John assisted me in disassembling and re-sealing the new exhaust system that I had installed in the Willys just prior to the trip. I could not have done it alone. Willys is running very well.  Average gas mileage to date is 19.2 MPG

8-29-14 St. Patrick Jean & Dan married

St. Patrick’s Church

Jean’s family has resided in Oneida for several generations, prompting her to state that she is related to half of the population. It was fun to see St. Patrick’s; the church where Jean and I tied the knot 49 years earlier (seems like yesterday – most of the time).

Blog Entry #2 Monday September 1, 2014 - Ticonderoga