Long trip.......all I wanted to do last night was sleep. Pennsylvania to Rhode Island and back in 32 hrs. traffic was great both ways but several unexpected delays set us back. The trip up was great (cruising speed, large highways, etc) untill I decided that I had "discovered" a quicker route between where we were and where we wanted to be. I'm not sure if it was quicker or not but everyone was really tolerant with me- if you know what I mean. The whole time we are on this "quicker route" I am saying a very short repetative prayer. Dear God please let there be a hotel when we get there! Sure enough, we are seeing signs for civilization again, and theres a holiday inn. We walk in to get a room- NO VACANCY!! Well, I'm feeling pretty bad, I have nobody to blame but myself, and I have decided to be more specific on my prayers (next time I will include "with a room"), the next two hotels we get to are all full. Impossible, we are in the middle of nowhere (aka eastern connecticut) and everybodys full. we eventually find a place that can put us up, but it was one of two rooms the guy had left in his Best Western. We stayed the night and left the next morning around 8, we are at the sellers house by 8:45/9:00; really nice guy, very interested in the care that his truck was about to undergo, and helped us load up so that we were ready to go by 10:00. The trip back was clear/beautiful untill we crossed into PA- rain and thunderstorms quickly befell us and The Night Moose was officially christened in PA water. We have relatives who own a cabin in the Poconos: a vacation/weekend cabin kind-o-place where they have taken a large section of the state and proclaimed it "pocono: cabin/weekender retreat" and it was the attempt to visit them that disturbed the trip the most. We went way far out of our way to go there, because we missed the exit (that wasn't labled the same as it was going the other way) we turned around eventually, we were running low on fuel, and you could see the stress rising to the surface of my fathers face and attempting to relieve itself by releasing water vapor from his body into the air (STEAM, LOTS AND LOTS OF STEAM) he cooled off a little bit when we got there, only to find out that to get into this "gated community" the relative had to come down and get us, give the office our vehicle registration, and then be allowed in. This takes a half hr. untill we are following my aunt through this community, that is centered around a lake. She takes us the long way around the lake to there cabin so that my father could be facing the right direction to back in. She doesn't realize that my father doesn't need to be facing "the proper direction" to back in. he could have done just fine facing the other way. we visit, we leave. still low on fuel, thankfully there was a gas station off there exit that we could fill up at. we go to get back on the highway when we are stopped by an accident. the fire police "idgit" told us how to get to the highway using a different route. we follow him but it doesnt feel right, we turn around. still doesnt feel right- how the heck to we get on that highway. we go in the origionaly direction the fire policeman showed us. 1/2 mile down the road there is a sign for the highway we want. moral of the story "don't turn around untill you are positive you're going the wrong way." This fiasco has delayed us 50min. but we are now on the highway. Every thing else went fine. we arrived home safely and went to bed.
