Road Trip

It was a painfully long trip to Pennsylvania.

Over the years we've become quite efficient in our travels to and from the great state of Pennsylvania--or, as I refer to it, a barren wasteland almost completely devoid of civilization as measured by Wegmans locations (J gets a kick out of this every time)--and we can count on exactly how long it will take us to make the trip. We know every landmark--the I-86 split at Corning, the big bridge over the Tioga reservoir, Mansfield (our usual lunch stop), Williamsport, Lewisburg, Selinsgrove, The Nipple, and the 581 shortcut. We know where the speed zones are, especially the nasty traps they have set about Littlestown. We are professional Route 15 drivers, which is why last Sunday was so frustrating.

The day didn't start off particularly well. I tried to download an update to my phone before church, and my whole phone died. I needed the ancient laptop to restore everything, and that wouldn't turn on, so we ended up leaving without a functional iPhone. Now I know that we made this trip for years without an iPhone of any sort, but we've come to be quite dependent on that phone. We use my phone to check traffic patterns, to stream music through the car stereo (and by music I mean "Imperial March on a continuous loop lest James freak out") to look up true and scientific information on Wikipedia thereby validating my correct opinions on whatever topic we are having a Very Friendly Marital Discussion, and of course to provide the non-driving parent (J) with access to facebook.

So we started out, phoneless, practically travelling by covered wagon. We weren't completely devoid of luxuries, though. We were driving in our mostly new Toyota Yaris, which comes with the notable features of 1) Air Conditioning and 2) not overheating whenever you idle at a light for more than 90 seconds. As it turned out, both of these features would be very important for getting through our day.

I should also note, before I begin whining in earnest, that James was FANTASTIC. In what turned out to be an 8 hour car trip he never complained once. He was chatty and cheerful, and was completely content to banter with Mommy and watch episodes of Curious George on her iPad.

Everything went pretty smoothly until Williamsport. We gassed up in Lawrenceville, and didn't stop again until we found a Dunkin Donuts. James had soaked through all his clothes, so we had to change him in a sleazy bathroom. He was cooperative, and I ordered a coffee and then asked him what he wanted. "I wanna TIMBIT." "They don't have timbits here. They have donut holes." "I wanna BLACK timbit." The waitress thought he was cute and gave him two donut holes. He was pretty happy. On our way out of Williamsport we ascended the mountain and ran into a bit of slow traffic. The road had been shut down to one lane in this spot as long as we could remember, so we didn't expect it would be a long delay.

How wrong we were.

We inched along the hot pavement, going a few feet at 5 miles an hour and then stopping again. Some traffic would move ahead of us, and space would open up. I'd accelerate to 10 or 15 miles an hour only to push the brakes harder when the truck in front of us stopped. We heard tractor trailers groaning as they stopped and then strained up the hill again.

Minutes passed by. Half-hours turned by. The half-hours turned to hours and days and weeks. The seasons came and went, and still we were trapped in an eternal traffic jam between Williamsport and Selinsgrove.

Okay, it wasn't that bad, but it felt pretty miserable. We passed countless overheated cars steaming by the side of the road, we heard horns honking in frustration, and every time we'd come to a brief two lane stretch our hopes would be dashed again when we bottlenecked back to a single lane several hundred feet later. There was never any accident that we spotted. As far as we can tell it was just two hours of heavy congestion exacerbated by the inability of trucks to get up the inclines under stop/start conditions.

J and I passed the time by coming up with a list of our favorite 99 things that we'd either bought, built or acquired. My iPhone, unsurprisingly, was pretty near the top of the list. Also, my french press, winter coat, the mailbox holder, her stereo dock, and many other worldly possessions. Perhaps the Lord was smiting us for being so materialistic. At one point her iPad (also on the list) made a notification sound (how's that possible? we have no internet...) and an app told her that she'd entered a new week of pregnancy.

"WE'VE BEEN IN THIS CAR FOREVER!!!!"

We eventually called her Dad and got Google's opinion on the traffic jam. Yes, it would clear up after we got through Selinsgrove. No, there were no alternate routes available to us from our position.

The southern stretch from Selinsgrove to Marysville is usually one of the "long parts" of the trip for us. There's about 45 minutes with no significant landmarks and without particularly notable scenery. This time around we blessed the highway and the hamlets as we whizzed along at 65 miles an hour. How glorious to be travelling at the speed limit again!

We passed through Harrisburg and began dreaming of the picnic that would be laid out for us when we arrived. We'd originally hoped to make it before 5:00, but now it looked like we'd be more than two hours late. Once J called her mother to let her know where we were she predicted that we could make it "by 7:11." We sped down the final stretch of Route 15 and got ready to make our exit onto Baltimore Street.

And then, 7 miles away, we hit another traffic jam.

We inched along for about two exits and then managed to get her Dad on the phone again. We got off the highway and managed to find our way around the northern part of Littlestown with his help, and finally made it to the Davis home about 7:30.

We have so much to be thankful for. James was great, the car was great. And GK Chesterton says that an inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.

POSTSCRIPT
We had another adventure today in the form of the trip back North. It took much longer than our usual 5.5 hours, but by no one's choice but our own. We stopped at Starbucks and got some really good coffee drinks. (The baby did a tap dance inside of J.) We had a leisurely dinner stop in Mansfield. James took a great nap and was generally angelic. And now we are home safe.

More bad words

I'm about to use more questionable language. Everyone brace themselves.

Regular readers of my blog (Hi Mom!) may remember that there was a recent incident in which I may have indirectly or directly participated involving a reverent cathedral, Christmas Eve, and the word "crap." Tonight, however, I'll be writing about a different bad word. The word is...nipple.

It's important to note, however, that I will not be using this word lasciviously, but purely in an anatomical or equally inoffensive manner.

EXAMPLE OF LASCIVIOUS USAGE:
Jessa brushed a strand of blonde hair out of her face and sized up Derek with a look of yearning desire. She licked her lips and ran a single finger down his muscular back as he turned off the kitchen tap and placed into the drying rack the baby's plastic bottle and rubber nipple.

EXAMPLE OF ANATOMICAL USAGE
GMAT Question 917: Why do men have nipples?

Rest assured, I'll be writing about nipples almost entirely in the 2nd sense.

You see, I noticed on the very first time I drove to Hanover, PA, that there was a brick building in Liverpool, PA (a little town on Rt. 15 north of Marysville) with a big sign that reads NIPPLE Convalescent Home on the northern face. This would have been back in December of 2004, when I was driving down to Hanover for the first time to meet J's parents. At the time, I simply smiled at the quirks of Pennsylvanians and continued my drive south.

Here is an unrelated example of Pennsylvanian quirkiness that happened just yesterday. We were filling up at the Sheetz gas station in Littlestown on our way back to New York, and I went inside to get some snacks. There was a middle aged man in a Baltimore Ravens jacket inside who sidled up next to me as I looked at the various types of Combos in the snack rack.

Pennsylvanian: Are you a Yankees fan?
Me: I beg your pardon?
Pennsylvanian: Do you root for the Yankees?
Me: No, I don't really follow baseball.
Pennsylvanian: Oh, I saw you had New York plates. The Giants then?
Me: No, I'm not from that part of New York.
Pennsylvanian: Oh. The Jets, then?
Me: The Buffalo Bills. (I move towards the drink cooler, casually ending the conversation.)
Pennsylvanian: (following) So, does O.J. Simpson still play for the Bills?
Me: No, he hasn't played for the Bills for a very long time.
Pennsylvanian: Do you think he did it?
Me: I'm really not sure. (I stop making eye contact and move to another part of the store.)
Pennsylvanian: (following) I mean, how long does it take to do a DNA test, you know?
Me: (still trying to escape) Mhm.
Pennsylvanian: (following) You know, I was in a medical study once. They told us we couldn't smoke. Then the doctor said he smelled smoke in the men's room, and we all had to pee in a cup. They had the results back in 10 minutes, and they threw 4 of the guys out right then for smoking!
Me: (taking out my cellphone and pretending to get a call) Hello? Yes, this is he...

But anyway, back to nipples. I first noticed the giant NIPPLE on the side of the brick building in Liverpool in 2004, and assumed that J, being a veteran pilgrim of Rt. 15, knew all about it. We continued to make trips back and forth several times a year, and a number of trips later she asked why I was sniggering.

"Because it says nipple on the side of that building."
"What?"
"The side of that building back there says nipple on it. Haven't you ever seen it?"
"I try not to look at the advertisements for those sorts of places."
"No, it's not one of those signs. It's for an old folks home. Nipple must be the last name of the proprietor. But it's really big, and it's in capital letters."
"Huh...I've never seen that before."
"You're kidding! It's huge."
"I'm not sure I believe you..."

And so it happened that every time we went through Liverpool I would laugh at the big nipple, and J would miss it. (It's much harder to see it when you're coming up from the South, so we didn't always remember to look for it then.)

In recent years we'd start to look for it ahead of time, but J seemed to be unable to see it. ("I mean, it's a huge NIPPLE on the side of the building.") Our predicament was not helped by the fact that I had trouble remembering whether the building was in Liverpool or Marysville, and the additional problem that these two towns come up in the most soul-sucking and boring stretch of the drive south. We looked again on our Christmas night trip, hoping perhaps to see NIPPLE softly illuminated in festive colors or adorned with wreaths. I saw it, but J didn't.

On the way back, everything was working against us. J was in the backseat with James, who was requiring a lot of attention. It was snowing pretty steadily, so visibility wasn't great. It wouldn't have been easy coming from the north, and we were coming from the south. Without being able to see it myself, I indicated to J when we were around the right group of buildings. She craned her neck out the back window and then shouted excitedly:

"I SEE IT! I SEE THE NIPPLE!"

We definitely high-fived from the backseat to the front.