Whew!

Made it back to the Aerie after a night in NJ at the Mother-in-Law's. I hit the road at 7 AM and traveled a short distance up the Parkway to the I-78 exit then headed west to Route 24 'til I got to I-287. Took that north to I-80 and headed back to PA. The beginning of the trip was during the height of rush hour traffic and congestion was the rule but once on I-80 west bound I was headed against the flow and almost all the congestion ended in the vicinity of the Rockaway Mall and Route 15. From then on it was just tractor trailers, long distance drivers (Ohio, Maine, Maryland, Virginia, DC, etc.) and me.

Here's one of the reasons I made the trip:

It's my daughter's "new" "used" car: a 2007 Yaris with approximately 6750 miles on the odometer.

If my truck had an 8' bed I could probably haul the little Yaris home. As it is, it almost would fit in the 6.5' bed of the Tundra.

It took us nearly three hours to get all the paperwork done and get out of the dealership. Way more time than was needed and almost a full two hours more than it took fro me to dot all the 'i"s and cross all the "t"s when I bought the Tundra last month. I'll blame part of that on NJ vs PA, but part just seemed to be too many people involved: car salesman, financing person, warranty salesman, cashier, etc. I think we talked with five different people and had to sign the same papers twice on several occasions. (They also had to "inspect" her trade-in--a 1996 Cavalier--even though they were giving her next to nothing for it. It still ate up 15 minutes of our time.)

Oh, the dealer is on the east bound side of Rt. 22 just west of the Parkway. And we drove there at 4 in the afternoon. I forgot about the madness (and it is near total) along that stretch of 22 not having been on it at that hour for about 8 years. But I survived! (Although I did have some concern about being rear-ended while I waited to make the U-turn to the east bound side of the highway. My brand new truck's ass end was sticking out into the fast lane and despite having my signal on I could imaging some yahoo thinking he was driving the Indy 500 creaming me.)

I probably saw more cars yesterday afternoon and this morning than I would see if I parked my butt on the stop light at THE corner down in Mansfield for a week.

The other reason for making the trip was, of course, to see my daughter. because of her work schedule she won't be able to make the drive to the Aerie with her cousin and their Grandma this afternoon.