Buzzards Bay or Bust day 3 Sunday July 27

We left from that last place this morning about 11am. Two or three hours later we could see the Big Apple. Then the stories about the George Washington Bridge that I got from the F-Boat list began to recreate themselves in my near future. I was tempted to pull the beast right through the city, then again, the GW was likely to be adventure enough.

I figure I gotta do it once, so I went for it, once I got in line for the toll booth it was just like the prep flag was up for the first race of the day. No spare, one bad tail light, questionable brakes on the trailer, none of it mattered, I was committed. From here the only thought to have is clear air and boat speed. Twenty minutes later we actually made it to the toll booth and my toll was only 18 bucks. I felt like I won the lottery. The bridge was really awesome if you like bridges and I do like bridges. Once across the water the stories began to ring true. The road was quite bad; however since I had been driving on I-95 all the way from Daytona Beach, there was nothing I hadn’t experienced several times already. I-95 is shot. Period. The traffic was a little different, every New-Jersey-Yorker was obviously out for a Sunday afternoon drive, and  a Florida vehicle with large unusual boats was not that welcome. After a good two hours of 10 to 15 mph in the rain I learned that the right lane just keeps disappearing. There must have been a lane sneaking in on the left but the one I was in just kept becoming an exit only. By the time I got back up to 40 or 50 mph, I needed to stop, then I got lost. A sign that looked like it was lost also directed us to  US 1. Orion saved me from one of those day ruining experiences when he noticed that the bridge I was about to go under had a clearance of 10’9”. Folded the F-31 has a clearance of 11’6”.

I-95 began to look a lot better after that. I gave in about an hour short of Providence. Orion is not too keen on driving the Burb whilst dragging the Cannon. So we will make the last couple of hours to Buzzards Bay tomorrow.  Oh yeah, Connecticut gas must be real special cause it costs $4.40 a gallon. I quit complaining about the pump stopping at 75 bucks.

-wb-