Today was not a good day. In fact, our worst nightmare. But it started out ok. We left our state park campground outside of Boston and headed to Florida, New York, where we had reservations at the Black Bear Campground, advertised as the second closest campground to New York City. We have been talking to our friend Barbara Flaxman all week. Barbara lives in Norwalk, Connecticut, and we were going to try to meet her somewhere today around her home, but couldn't come up with a plan that worked. She is going to be our tour guide in the City.
That was our plan when we got up, but when we looked at the map and saw that getting to the campground in Florida from Norwalk did not really have any good routes, we decided to skip Norwalk and just head to Florida. The closest campground to NYC is in Jersey City, which is where the Brundiges had stayed several years ago, but they were (1) full, although they had dry camping available, (2) very expensive. For the holiday weekend, their rates including tax were about $105/night with hookups. Even without hookups, staying in their dry camping area which is just a boat yard, was $65. Basically to park on a parking gravel parking lot. So we did not plan on going there.
Anyhow, along our route today, once we got into Connecticut, I saw on the map that we were going through Danbury which didn't look too far from Norwalk, so I called Barbara again, and she agreed to drive up there to meet us. That worked out. We parked at the Danbury Fair Mall, right off the freeway and right off highway 7 which she would be coming in on, and had about a 20-minute wait until she arrived. Then we went over to the mall to Cheesecake Factory and worked on a plan. Which changed everything.
Once she worked with us on train schedules and rates, it became apparent that what we were not spending on RV camping in Jersey City, we would be spending on train rides into the City every day. It was going to cost $7.50 each, $15.00 round trip, so that was $30 per day, plus the Black Bear Campground rates were $54. And it was a 40-minute drive to get to the train in Florida, then I think it was 92 minutes on the train. So not only were we going to spend more money from Florida, it was going to take about 2 hours each way to get back and forth. So I called and cancelled the Black Bear reservation, had to eat my $50 deposit, called Jersey City campground and confirmed that we could stay in their dry camping area, said goodbye to Barbara about 4:00 p.m. and we began to make our way to Jersey City. Which was supposed to be 68 miles, I think.
So we hadn't researched our route since we changed mid-stream, and were totally depending on Lucille to get us there. We took I-84 from Danbury on into the state of New York, and I don't even know what highway we took into the city, but GPS Lucille kept directing us onto freeways that said "no trucks," which meant that there were low overpasses, so we would have to exit that freeway, no matter which way the exit sent us. Then she would recalculate, and we would get to the next one, with the same problem. I don't know how many times we had to either exit, or take the other road, on these freeways, and she would recalculate, but the GPS does not have the option of "no trucks" or "low bridges," (besides, GPS Lucille does not know when she's guiding the RV and when she's guiding the Explorer, or even the pick-up). I think we were on the 278 through here. Anyhow, we ended up in the BRONX!! about 5:00 p.m. on Friday night, of a holiday weekend!!!! And it gets worse.
She kept trying to take us across every bridge we came to, finally we crossed the East River (I think), which put us in MANHATTAN!!! (I think). Still dodging roads with "no truck" signs. Finally, at another intersection, Joe decides that maybe those "no truck" signs are just a way to keep traffic moving, and don't really mean low overpasses, so he takes the "no truck" route. It's hard for us to imagine freeways that semis can't run because of low overpasses. Right away we go under a 12'3" bridge, which we get through ok. But immediately then we see the next one, It says 11'6"!!!!!!!!! We are about 12'3", so we knew there was no way we were getting under that one. But we find a wide spot along the freeway (a rare thing, a wide spot), he gets out the ladder, and tries to get a good measurement of our height. So here we are, sitting right on a busy 3-lane freeway, the other side being separated by a divider, so no way to turn around, even if traffic allowed. And it's probably 5:30-6:00 by now. Well, there was no way we were going to get under that bridge. So we discussed options. There were none. The only idea I had was to call 911 and let the cops block traffic for us to make a u-turn, which would mean stopping all 3 lanes of traffic (there might have even been 4 lanes here, I don't remember). Joe was not in favor of that.
Then, a saint stopped. A guy in a tow truck!! He asked if we needed help! He was an answer to prayer. So what he did (apparently this was not his first rodeo), we unhooked the car, he pulled in behind the car and slowly, inch by inch, started backing up to clear traffic. Then I followed him, backing up in the Exporer. Then Joe followed me, backing up in the RV. Inch by inch. Horns were blaring, believe me. We probably had between 1/4 and 1/2 mile to back up, so it took some time (and some nerves!). At one point, Joe was backing up faster than I could (he couldn't always see me in the mirror, depending on how straight I was backing and because the car is not as wide as the RV), anyhow, he backed into me. I knew he was going to, and I honked and honked, but he didn't hear me (or didn't realize that was me honking instead of every other car on the freeway honking at us). But no damage, the hitch on the RV just hit the hitch on the front of the Explorer. We both got out, checked, and started again. But when he started, the hitch fell off it's bracket so he had to get back out and reset that, so no big deal.
Back into the vehicles, more backing, until we got to the merge lane. Here, it got a little trickier. The wonderful saint a/k/a the tow truck driver, stopped his tow truck in the little apron between where the far right lane merges onto the freeway and the next 2 lanes turn onto it. He had me pull up next to him to block the rest of that entrance area on the merge ramp (met some more New Yorkers here with this move who greeted me with words like "Get Out of New York"), and the tow-truck driver stopped traffic, walking behind Joe in the RV, and backed him all the way out of that merge lane, stopping all the oncoming traffic. Then as soon as he cleared the intersection, I pulled in behind him, again going against all this stopped traffic, until we were clear of it. Joe was able to pull over to the side and park, and traffic could then get around him. I found a place to park on the other side (amazingly, I have no idea why there was a spot there, but there was). So we profusely thanked the tow-truck driver. He said he would have to charge us (well, yes), but he only charged us $137.50. He probably worked with us at least 45 minutes, maybe closer to an hour. I "graciously" gave him $140 and didn't ask for change. We were lucky to have had that much cash on hand. He said if we had called the cops, there was a $4,000 fine and they have to bring in a special tow truck, deflate the tires on the RV, and I don't know what else. We were very lucky that he stopped and helped us.
But, even after all that, we still have to get out of the City and over to New Jersey. He gave us directions to stay out of the tunnels and only take the George Washington bridge, so once we left him, Joe still had to get turned around, so I backed him up curbside, and he was finally able to turn back onto the street we had been on before we merged onto the freeway. I followed him, and he found a spot to pull over and get us hooked up back up together. Then, we worked our way out of the City, going by Yankee Stadium, (here we are on the 87, which we had been on before, but missed the turn to onto the 95 which would have taken us across the George Washington bridge before we got into all our problems) so we were back in the Bronx. Lucille kept trying to get us to go over every bridge, so we finally had to turn her off. We found the George Washington Bridge, here you have to take the upper level (trucks), because the lower level is cars only. But we did that right, so now we are in New Jersey. Yeah!!!
Once we got over the bridge, we stayed with the 95 for a while and found a service area (this is now a toll road), so we fueled ($2.209) and I went inside to see if I could get information to get us to our campground. We were only about 7-8 miles from it. The Information Center inside the service area was closed, but I found someone in a unform (he turned out to be a bus driver!) and he got out his smart phone and routed me to the campground. I had taken pad and paper in so I wrote it down, turn by turn. In the meantime, Joe had finished fueling and pulled over to wait for me. He had turned Lucille back on, so he had a different set of directions, and of course they didn't match. But the bus driver told me we should have trouble over here in New Jersey with low overpasses, so we just needed to get to the campground. For a while we were trying to follow both, or decide with one to follow at each turn (there were lots of turns, 0.3 miles, 0.4 miles apart). Finally, I just put mine down and we followed Lucille. So SHE took us right down main street (which happens to be Newark Street) at 8:00 p.m. on a Friday night. Barely enough room for our mirrors to clear the traffic or parked cars. Then we run into a Street Fair, and the road is closed!!! We got around that, and finally found the campground, which was also closed but they had security to check us in. So it was about 8:30 when we arrived, it took us 4 1/2 hours to drive 68 miles, and mostly it was awful.
Oh, I forgot to mention the roads themselves. Every bridge or overpass, which was usually just a few hundred feet apart, had been patched and left very bumpy. So we shook ourselves to death. I'm surprised I have any dishes left. That was constant for many miles, outside the city or inside the city. Just added to the joy of the day.
By the time we got parked (no hookups, so nothing we had to do except pick a spot and back in), we were exhausted. If we hadn't been so tired, I would have voted just to skip New York City and go on down the road. But we needed to rest. Being tense for so many hours is very tiring. We settled for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and went to bed. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that overpass looming in front of me. Did not sleep very well.
But we had a lot to be thankful for, and at the top of that list is the tow-truck driver. I really don't know what we would have done had he not stopped.
We drove 269 miles today, very hard miles. Had good weather. Glad this day is over.
I did snap a few pictures before things got awful. The first one is Barbara on our computer, helping us make plans.
I'm sure this will make a good story in the future. Right now, it is still pretty raw. I wasn't even sure I wanted to blog it. Especially since I just want to forget it. That's why I waited until Sunday morning to even begin.
But Saturday was an excellent day, so I can put this one in the past.
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