The Trip (Final Day)

So I woke up to fogged up windows inside my Escape. Luckily, my co-workers had gotten me a cool ice scraper which had a squeege on one side. It was a couple of swipes and I could see it was a cloudy day but not too cold. As before, I had gas already and just made a quick bathroom break and I was off on the last day. I was practically there.

I was moving through Indiana when all of sudden there would be construction signs with a speed of 45 posted and all these signs about going to jail if you got a reckless driving ticket. The thing was there was no construction at all just signs. It was the equivalent of neighborhood speed bumps as the traffic would slow down and then get back up to 75.

I finally got out of Indiana and was going through Ohio. This state had some hills again but nothing too bad. I stopped at this little gas station and the people in the store were actually quite pleasant and nice. It was a surprise. I got some gas and a sandwich. I washed the windows and I was off. I had calculated that I would only need to stop one more time before I got to DC.

It's amazing when I thought about how really close I was. I went through Buckeye country, Columbus and traffic wasn't too bad. I made it into Pennsylvania which was just weird. Everything was a township instead of county. I was only Pennsylvania for like 50 miles before I was in West Virginia.

I drove right through Morgantown where I was listening to a local radio station. They played an Alansis Morisette "You oughta know" parody about how the head football coach abandoned the team. It was hilarious. Good stuff. I started heading up some mountains agian basically the Appalachians. I was driving through some really raining/cloudy conditions which made visibility tough. Especially going up hills with super slow semis.

I was nearing my gas tank fillup and the town wasn't coming any sooner. I was getting a little worried because it was really countryside out in the middle of nowhere. Very little cell service if any. Just as we were entering the town on the freeway there was a classic speed trap. Basically you start heading down this hill into town and the speed limit goes from 65 to 45 and smack around this bend was a cop just sitting in his car waiting for a speeder.

I had slowed down as I was planning on stopping for gas and was looking for the first exit with those lovely blue gas freeway exit signs. I got my gas and was basically only 160 miles from DC although it seemed like a long ways since I was up in the hills.

I was driving along heading out of the hills when they started having those summit signs on the side of the road. The funny thing was the first sign was a whopping 1500 ft or so and last one was 1000 ft. I had to laugh as back in Oregon we have foothills around Portland with those elevations. At lunch time, we ride up hills that top out around 1000 ft. This has me worried about being able to keep my hill focus for the Canada Ironman as there are some decent hills on the course. I need to find a 1000 ft climb or so and do repeats to keep ready. Otherwise, I'll turn into a flatlander wussy.

I got to Frederick, Maryland and saw an exit for Gettysburg. There is going to be so much American history just miles away it will be interesting for Elena as she gets older.

And then I got my first taste of east coast traffic...There was construction going on that had closed one lane of the freeway. It caused at least a couple of miles of backup. I slowly made my way through that and was hopeful I wouldn't be too late into the day. I was hoping to get to my final destination, Silver Spring(a suburb of DC) before rush hour hit.

There was a four lane highway and people were doing 75 in a 55. It was great. I could speed along and look slow to normal. People were zipping in and out of traffic. Ahh...my kind of driving.

The beltway! I had to get on the beltway for 3 miles to get to my exit. It was jammed pack at 4pm and took me a half hour to get those 3 miles. Stop and go but I really didn't care because I had basically made it. I got off the freeway and meandered through Silver Spring to the house. I made it. Woohoo!! It was 4pm East Coast time. It had taken me 2 and 1/2 days.

Here's the final statistics on the drive:
2856 miles traveled
35 hours driving
$351 gas
Cheapest Gas: $2.79 outside Cheyenne, WY
Most expensive gas: $3.29 in North Platte, NE ( I got reamed!)
Average gas mileage: 125 gallons for roughly 22mpg