Dan and Hannah Have a Plan to Beat the DC Beltway Traffic

Our goal is a simple one: drive from Maine to Virginia and arrive before the Friday afternoon Washington, DC rush hour traffic.  Off to see our daughter Molly who is six months pregnant, we have 500+ of the nastiest highway miles America has to offer ahead of us.  Plagued with the fourth worst traffic in the country, Washington is eight hours away, or so our GPS claims.  Please!  Our GPS lives in a fantasy world where there is no traffic and every light is green.   Once, on the day after Christmas, this drive took us 11+ hours! 

Perhaps, you’ve heard of us, the Crack-of-Dawn Traveling Rothermels.  When our three kids were young, Hannah and I drove west four times to see the USA in a Chevrolet; our Chevrolet was a GMC Van.  (This is such a dated reference to Dinah Shore that if you don’t get it, ask your elders.  If you do get it, you are an elder.) The last of those times was driving the Alaska Highway to Fairbanks on an 11,000 mile trip.  Our typical daily driving plan was often to pack up the tents (a Mom and Dad tent and a Molly, Robyn, and Will tent – a brilliant strategy for you camping parents of kids of all ages!) at the crack of dawn.  Hannah, Molly, and Will would immediately fall back asleep while Robyn always stayed awake to keep me company.  I would drive 200 miles and then we’d treat ourselves to breakfast at a local diner or cafe. 

If today we are going to make it through the heart of the Northeast megalopolis, we’ll again need an early start this late April morning.  To minimize the need to stop, we pack a cooler with apples, bananas, pears, celery, and carrots.  (We are in the running for the Crunchy Granola Couple-of-the-Month).  The night before we bought Subway subs (Spicy Italian for Hannah, tuna for me) for lunchtime sustenance.   We’ll switch drivers every couple of hours.  Friends, George and Neila, have made us a bag of stovetop popcorn, which it turns out sustains us for days!  

Awake at 430A, we are on the road by 520A.  Heading South on I-95 in Maine and then New Hampshire, we use our Easy Pass to breeze through the Hampton, NH tolls at 65 mph.  I know Easy Passes are a way a possibly nefarious government can track our every movement, but sadly we are a little too trusting and too lazy to worry about that.  (Lazy is such a harsh self-descriptor.)  That privacy ship has long since sailed for us, since we are on the Internet most days. 

With a full day in the car ahead of us, today I bring up my reading of the Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz.   Try as I might, I struggle living up to Agreement #2 - Don’t take anything personally.  don Miguel calls judgments and negative assessments by others  poison.  I love the power and image of that word as I can see the negativity cursing through one’s body.  If you let the poison in by taking things personally, it is you who will pay.  When someone talks or spews or even compliments, they are talking about themselves, not you.  don Miguel’s wisdom is starting to take root in me.

We get gas on the Mass Pike for S3.93, which is still far too low for this country to address their energy dependency on oil and the damaging foreign wars it causes to protect our access to foreign oil.  Getting off my soapbox, yet still in our car, as the male, I play against character and love to have Hannah drive half the time.  I get to write, read, and talk with her without her falling asleep.  I text Molly and our friend Amelia, whose house we’ll stay in once we are in Virginia.    

Sailing along I-84 south by Hartford, CT at 745A, some 150 miles into our trip, we are looking good for arriving before the DC afternoon rush hour.  Next it’s the Wilbur Cross and Merritt Parkways, as the GPS then directs us to I-95 on the Long Island Sound in CT as a way through New York City.  We bite, figuring who’d be on the road this midmorning Friday.   And then for no apparent reason – there’re neither accidents nor construction - we are crawling through Bridgeport, CT.  This could be lose/lose.  Stuck in traffic here and stuck in DC this afternoon.  Using the low tech Rand McNally atlas, we see that the Merritt Parkway, which parallels I-95 four miles to the north, is worth a shot.   Off we go, hoping to do the Columbus thing by going north to get south. 

Bingo!  The Merritt is rolling along and singing a song and soon we are taking the Hutchinson Parkway south towards New York City.  Our GPS now says we’ll arrive closer to 2P, still in time to beat the DC traffic.  I figure if we get there by 3P, we are golden.  We head to the Bronx (one of the five New York City boroughs) along the Major Deegan Parkway towards the George Washington Bridge (GWB) with its $12 toll.  Gas has been climbing from under $4 in MA to the $4.20s in CT and is now $4.65 per gallon in NYC.  Driving in NYC is just way too stimulating for me: cars and trucks coming at various angles and roads going down to one lane due to ever-present construction.  We are strangers in a strange land.  Yet, at 10A we cruise over the GWB.  Virginia here we come!

On to the 12 (count ‘em 12!) lanes of the New Jersey Turnpike, with three express lanes on each side, we dodge major congestion and drive south through the Garden State, passing oil refineries of Elizabeth and rural farms in Swedesboro and Glassboro in southern Jersey.  Having just a quarter of a tank, we pull into the area gas station off the NJ Turnpike.  Big mistake.  Long lines and grumpy attendants have us weave around the waiting cars and continue south on I-95 to Delaware.  Gas is $3.78 in NJ and $3.79 in Delaware.  Delaware is worth the wait.

Crossing the Delaware Memorial Bridge we are just under seven hours into our trip, still on schedule to beat the DC rush hour.  In the blink of an eye, we are through Delaware and into Maryland on I-95.  The tolls in Delaware are stunning.  $9 for that little state.  Overall tolls on I-95 from Maine to Virginia are $47.  Of course, with an Easy Pass we haven’t a clue how much we are paying.  Ignorance is not exactly bliss.

The Four Agreements returns as companion for our conversation.  I have a major epiphany.  When people compliment you, they are really telling you how they are doing; it’s not about you!   When they criticize you, they are reflecting how they are feeling.  When they compliment you, they are demonstrating that they are feeling good.  When people communicate, it’s about them, not you!   It becomes easier to understand the second agreement, Don’t take anything personally, in that light.  don Miguel’s rationale renews my strength to make this agreement. 

Four lanes of traffic in Maryland slow to a crawl.  DC traffic looms.  A wrecker passes us in the breakdown lane and soon we see the officers attending to the accident at the side of the road.  Picking up speed, we take one final rest stop just north of the DC Beltway.  The GPS is saying we’ll arrive at 245P, a mere 9 and half hours of driving.   Despite the many hours in the car, it feels like a victory.

Arriving at the Beltway heading west to Virginia going 65 mph, we are smoking.  Vienna, VA is in our cross hairs and after a couple of miles of city traffic we arrive at Amelia’s place. 

Hannah and Amelia

Flushed with success, we walk a section of the 45 mile Washington and Old Dominion Bike Trail through suburban Virginia neighborhoods.  

Dinner at Amelia’s with Molly and Tip and our grandchild-to-be lies ahead.  The memories of nine and a half hours of driving fade in the sweet company of family and friends.