Tuesday, 6/28, Heading out

Mazel Tov/Congratulations!!! Arie passed his road test. I'm not sure if the
test is usually that quick, or maybe the tester just wanted to get out of my hotbox
(1990 Civic, no air, ~180K miles) as soon as she could. The wait at the Kilmer
DMV was at least 2 hours long to get his license, so we went over to South
Plainfield, where we had to wait ONLY 1.75 hours. You can't drive out-of-state
with just a permit, so he would need the actual license if he would help with
the drive.

So we headed out about an hour later than we were planning. We left Edison at
1PM. As you can see, we tried packing "light". Actually, we realized last
night that we would have to consolidate a bit in order to fit everything in,
including food for a small army. We're not exactly "roughing" it, but if
you consider no broadband access while doing 75mph on the road "roughing" it,
then maybe we are.  Each place we're staying has internet access, so we're able
to keep this blog updated.

The trip was fairly uneventful, thankfully. I had been pretty nervous about
that Sears X-cargo X-treme cargo carrier on top of the car. I read the reviews
before I bought it, and there are always those reviewers who seem to have
experienced a nightmare with it - rattling around on the roof, water leaking in,
"oscillating" on the rack (whatever that means). But as usual, those reviewers
were probably not very skilled in installing it correctly. We had absolutely no
problems. Didn't even notice it on top of the car. When we stopped for gas, a
trucker saw me inspecting it and he said to do that frequently, as he's seen
them flying off car roofs. I said that since I hadn't heard anything from it on
the road, I figured it was either on there pretty good, or I had already lost it
way back and never noticed. Thankfully, it was the former.

A fair amount of cops on the road, along with many wide-loads. (I'll wait until
the jokes subside - "Was one of them YOU???") No traffic, just some slow downs
to 50mph at some construction areas. And we almost made friends with some
fellow Orthodox Jews driving with North Carolina plates. (For all the non-
Orthodox Jews reading, it's something of a game when traveling to see others of
our ilk anywhere. And there aren't too many of us down in NC.) So we passed
the car on its left and Karen mentioned that the driver was wearing a
yarmulkah/skullcap. Then a minute later, I see the car zooming up on our left
side, and the guy's wife is looking out the window at us smiling, so we all wave
to each other. Then they dropped far behind once they all had confirmation of
the sighting.

So we pulled into Port Clinton, OH at around 9:30PM, with just a few bathroom
stops, and one gas fill-up. I was quite impressed that we got 22.3 MPG, with
the big load and the air running. The sticker mileage for highway is 22, I
believe.

I bought tickets online for Cedar Point Amusement Park, at a $13/ticket discount
off the regular price. Unfortunately, their website gives an error trying to
open the pdf to print them out. I tried on two machines with no luck. I guess
I'll have to visit customer service to get in tomorrow morning. Hopefully we'll
have some good pics of the "Roller Coaster Capital of the World".