I am going to do our Philly trip in a few posts, simply so that I can remember everything. This first post will deal with just getting from Wellsville to Philadelphia.
We left on the morning of April 5th. It was flurrying in Wellsville, but nothing to make the driving difficult. We did not get an extremely early start to the trip and because of that, we had to make our first stop for Quincy’s feeding in Mansfield, PA. So we got a good 1.5 hours of driving under the hood at that point. We fed Quincy at the local McDonald’s. It only took me three trips to and from the car for the things that we needed for him. Side note: I can remember back when Dara and I traveled BQ (before Quincy), that we each had one suitcase and maybe one other bag. Now that Quincy is on the scene, I see that we need a whole support crew to pack the car. How should an almost 8-month old need so much stuff? Okay, on we go.
So, the feeding in Mansfield took a little longer than planned, but we muddled thru it and headed on out again. Quincy was great in the car. He slept a lot and when he was awake, he had some of his toys to play with. Our next step was to drive down to Williamsport, PA, pick up I-180 and take that to I-80 East. Neither of us had been on that part of I-80 before, so we weren’t sure what there would be to eat along the way. The next stop would come down to a, “Do you feel lucky?” sort of decision. We were watching the clock and Quincy (who was sleeping). Fortunately for us, we stumbled across the perfect stop.
I can’t even remember the name of the town, but there was an exit off of I-80 that had a lot of new shopping, restaurants, etc. We made our lunchtime stop at Ruby Tuesday and had a nice lunch. By this time, we had realized that we could have used a few more items for Quincy and putting his meals together. To that end, I ran into the new Walmart that was nearby to get the items in question. I usually know where things are in Walmart – most stores are laid out the same. I knew I was in trouble as soon as I walked thru the doors. This was no ordinary Walmart – this was like some sort of cross between a store and an airplane hangar. The place was huge! The signage was sub-par. I walked the half-mile to the baby section for one item and then, wouldn’t you know it, the next item was found 10 blocks away by the food? Egad. I think I reached my target heartrate just hiking to a register. On with the trip.
Our next step after I-80 was to look for I-476 which goes down toward Philly. I should mention that I-80 was a very nice road, newly paved, nice median, and free. What really stumped me was I-476. It was a tool road. It was in really bad shape. There was no median, unless you call jersey barriers the median. I couldn’t wait to get off of it. We thought we might make a stop at one of the areas on the toll road, but as we soon came to realize, we weren’t that far from Philly. We decided to push on. We got off the toll road (4 dollars) and onto I-76.
I-76 has traffic. It doesn’t matter if it is 3pm, 8pm, 10am, 2am or whenever. We weren’t quite at the city yet either, but it was a lof of traffic. Nothing like merging 4 lanes down to 2 with no warning. Did I mention that Philly area drivers have no fear? I think I left fingernail marks in the steering wheel. We made it to our next turn in fairly good time – I-676 – a LEFT turn onto I-676. We were lucky and were in the correct lane. We then were lucky to be in the correct lane again to pick up route 611/Broad Street, which would take us down to the hotel. This is when things got ugly, fast.
Here is a map I have modified from the google maps.
First, notice how the city is laid out – one ways all over the place. The big red dot is our hotel. The red line is my first attempt to get there. The red line turns to blue and that shows my second attempt to get there. Now, it may look like it was no big deal, but there were other factors: maniac drivers, divining which lane to be in, wife getting upset, Quincy crying (hungry). After the first swing around the square, I knew what I had to do, but the traffic was soooooooo slow and the lights so plentiful. I started to think of the movie European Vacation, the part where Clark cannot merge out of the rotary and they pass Big Ben and Parliament about 100 times. I thought that that would be my fate. Luckily, we went around twice and then pulled into the drop-off area for the hotel. Hoorah! We made it, no more problems right? Wrong. Stay tuned for Part II.