Part 1 of 3 (Trust me, you’ll love them all…)
Early in 2019, before the pandemic hit full force, I drove from Michigan to New York city to pick up my daughter. Not a trivial task, so I'd prepared as best I could and embarked on the ten-hour drive at a time that would get me there well before midnight. I'd stay the weekend and on Sunday we'd drive back.
At least that was the plan.
It was early in February and, winter being winter, I had chosen a gap in a storm system to make the drive. Michigan and Ohio can be terrible in blizzards, but the mountains of Pennsylvania worry me more. It's not that they're massive and foreboding. On the contrary, the highways cut a reasonably gentle path from valley to peak and down into the valley again.
The problem is the trucks that have to labor up a slope, crawling along at forty miles an hour, and gain momentum on the other side, barreling down the hill at eighty. If you've ever been hemmed in by slow traffic as a tractor-trailer crawls up your ass, and there's not even a shoulder if you wanted to get out of the way, you know what I mean by a "problem."
So I drove across Pennsylvania along Interstate 80 in February. There are long stretches between exits, with forested mountains between. As darkness fell, I drove into the State Game Lands, where there are still fewer exits. As darkness settled in for good, I reached the Pocono Mountains. From there, I was only a few more hours to New York City, and reasonably on schedule.
On a down slope straight stretch of highway, a loud sound, repeating like gunfire, filled the cabin. I hadn’t hit anything in the road, but something was hitting me. With a minimal glance to my blind spot, I pulled to the side of the road.
As I sat for a moment to calm my heart, I gathered my courage to step out and investigate. I think a space walk outside the International Space Station is a lot more frightening, but at least there aren’t Honda Civics, Chevy Silverados and Mack Trucks roaring past you at eighty miles per hour.
The light from my iPhone revealed damage to the rear and side of my car. My gas cap door was gone, and black skid marks were plastered from the bottom to the roof.
There was a bungee cord stuck in the tire. I had run over it and the metal hook had impaled the tire, sending the other end slapping the side of my car at ninety revolutions per minute. The black marks were rubber streaks from the cord.
In just a few more seconds, my tire was flat as a pancake. As I watched it deflate, a PA State Trooper pulled up to offer assistance. It turned out an exit was less than a mile away, and I limped along on the shoulder.
With a few minutes of respite in a safe place (a former Sinclair gas station at the edge of the Poconos), I put on the spare tire and evaluated my options. I could likely make it to New York on the spare and arrive around midnight. Then I’d have to find a shop to fix the tire in Manhattan during a blizzard (remember the gap in weather systems as part of my trip?). If I couldn’t find a shop, I’d have to risk the return journey on the spare after the blizzard had passed us over during the weekend. Not a great option.
I decided to find the nearest town with a tire shop and a motel, and delay my arrival but with a (hopefully) repaired tire.
Cars and our Interstate system have made travel so commonplace that we take for granted long distance journeys. Rest stops and cell phones make us think help is never far away. In fact, these long drives are just one miraculous near-miss after another.
And in my next blog post, I’ll tell you about what the best available motel was like in a Poconos resort town in February.