After you leave the toll booths (hard to imagine you have to PAY for the pleasure of this traffic) all of the lanes merge down into three lanes. This is pretty intimidating to us rural type people as the rule of thumb seems to be if I do not see you, you are not there. As you can guess being polite in not a virtue in this mess and so you just have to keep inching your way forward till the other guys gives up and lets you by! Believe it or not there are very few accidents that anyone stops for on this bridge. Often mirrors rub and often mirrors or broke on the bridge but it would take hours to get the police here so everyone just goes on to their destination while waving at the offending vehicle with usually one finger accompanied by honking and screams of who his mama is out the window.
This where you really start jockeying for you space on the road and once you the car is behind your vision it is not there and you continue on with your drive.
Once you have reached this point you are free to go until you get across the bridge and there is one overpass after another and you feel as if you are in a long tunnel! Very dark and very crowded and lots of mirrors get bumped in that area.Our friend Randy calls me a wimp for letting this intimidate me but he is from Philly and that is enough said! This is just a day in the park for him and he can eat a sandwich, be on the phone and drive a truck through all this and be as happy as a bug in a rug! What a guy! It is funny though narrow dark two lane roads out in the country in the middle of no where bother him. I think I will take the lonely country roads any day of the week.
Ah !! Ha !! A picure of home !!! You would never guess who once crossed the GW 3 times with Iowa plates-missed exit in 1969. have always said that when we drove to Gleh Head, L.I. hometown-take 24 hours to go the 1200 miles then another 10 hours to go the next 30 miles-it was here as we went E and then on to I-295 over the Throgs Neck Bridge that I would go 70 M.P.H. and then put on breaks-angelic mate-now of 40 years would always say -ooh !!! Finally-did that for 10 th time-no oooh-you are now an official NYC passenger-since that time-so many more trips-especially in Europe-parent's moved in 1995. Interesting too when we drove with daughter's right before we entered New Joy-ze-X-Ny'r are allowed to say New Joy-ze-we told kids they could make as much noise as possible-then had to be quiet-which they were. Loved your toll booth stories since as a passenger car driver as the Brooklyn born and Copaigue, Lonk Island, King and Queen of the Road, I would always pay-gun the engine to 70 and get ahead of traffic !!! Years ago they used to have a 10 c toll in Illinois outside of Rockford-would attempt to see how fast I could go, drop the coin in, hear the sirins as I sped off without a gate even though I had paid-was upped to 30 cents-made it tough driving at night with sweaty palms from coffee to have both coins drop-sad to say-they put up a gate-rats !! Warmest regards to all those truckers who guide our nations commerce. With warmest regars from the North Pole in Minnesota since 1970. If you ever cross the Golden Gate-would hope that you take some extra time-park rig and at least walk out to middle-have walked over and back-what a view !!! All the best !! Thanks for friendship as a former customer where I can now track you all over the country from this 50 state traveler since what 1987 ? Joy, good health,happinees , peace and grace. During college I managed to hitch-hike some 30,000 miles around the counrty from SE Iowa on breaks-it was here that I managed to appreciate the trucker. A special tribute to all !!!
ReplyDeleteGotta love the Big Apple... and eager drivers all vieing for the same spot on the other side of the cash box.
ReplyDelete