Day 25-DC to NYC

Somewhere between laziness and sketchy WiFi we are finally getting back to updating our travels...Today we are covering four states.

Now, on to NYC, a travel day that will go down in infamy. The day started off with a drive through Maryland. A few tolls here, a few tolls there, a few tolls everywhere. After tiring of handing out cash every few miles, we stopped at the travel plaza in Delaware to see if we could buy an EZPass transponder that would get us through future toll plazas quicker and lessen the fees. However, we discovered that without an actual license plate number (brand new RV) we could not register for the device. Unsuccessful, we settled with a Starbucks visit and moved on.

As we travelled through New Jersey, we ran directly into the path of a thunderstorm. This really slowed down our travels, but we eventually found a Wegman's market to stock up on groceries. By the time we finished, the rain had stopped and we made egg sandwiches for dinner in the parking lot.

DISCLAIMER:

Before reading on, you must know that during my extensive planning of this trip I discovered a lot of things I wanted to do and see. I also discovered things I wanted no part of. One of those latter things was driving the RV anywhere near NYC.

Moving on to NYC, our planned route was to cross the George Washington Bridge and then turn north on the Henry Hudson Parkway. We soon learned that there were many things wrong with this plan. First, DON'T EVER CROSS THE GEORGE WASHINGTON BRIDGE INTO NYC! If you see the bridge in this picture, remember it and drive another direction.

We had just started to warm up to the whole idea of the tolls when the lady at the bridge toll plaza calmly stated "$42.00". I said, "$42.00?!" (there is a charge for each tire and axle) Since we did not have a choice, we payed the toll and moved on through the 10 lane free-for-all merge back into 4 lanes and crossed the remainder of the bridge. Still recovering from the ransom toll, we started to see signs that read "PASSENGER CARS ONLY". Unfortunately, these non-RV friendly signs were for the Henry Hudson Parkway that we planned to use to get to our campsite 45 minutes north of The Big Apple. What did we do? Well, we ignored them of course. BIG MISTAKE! After a couple miles we rounded the corner where there was one last idiot sign reading 11'-4" CLEARANCE (our height is 12'-0") and "ALL TRUCKS MUST EXIT." This leads us to the second thing we learned. RV’s have no business anywhere near a parkway. The city of NY must have known that despite all of the prior warnings that some people like us would try to get through. Luckily, before going through another toll plaza there was a large shoulder so we pulled over to access our next move. After idling for a few minutes, the toll plaza police officer noticed us and walked over. His first question was, "what are you doing here?" “Good question”, I said. After I further explained how we got there he escorted us through the tall lane of the toll plaza and gave us directions to exit the highway two exits down the road and that would lead us to Broadway. Once on Broadway, we could then move on up the road to our destination.

Even though it was a forced exit (completely altering all of our plans) we proceeded without much trouble, but that feeling did not last long as we found ourselves on the narrow, doubled-loaded one-way streets of the Bronx. Still trying to find Broadway, we proceeded to make a series of turns that just made a bad situation worse eventually leading to an impassible road somewhere in Yonkers. While attempting to make a 32 point turn inches from cars on three sides (front and both sides) a neighbor saw the situation we were in and came out to move his car. This allowed us to then proceed the wrong way down a one-way street. Hallelujah, we finally made it to Broadway and we were home free…or so we thought. Once on Broadway, we could not see how it would lead us to our campsite so we tried to find a “better” route north. Adding to our anxiety, it was now dark and we wound up making a turn that lead us toward another parkway with a 9’-4” tunnel clearance. So I did what anyone would do...I slammed on my brakes and made a U-turn right in front of oncoming traffic and prayed that no cars were exiting from the adjacent blind parkway exit. Thankfully, it was a successful maneuver and I wound up pulling into a sketchy gas station to clear our heads. After a few minutes of looking at the maps, we retraced our path back towards a hospital we passed to hopefully find someone who could give us reliable directions. It just so happened that the entrance I chose was the Emergency ambulance drive through lane. Not exactly the best location for an RV. We found out a little later that this lane was now a secondary entrance and most the the emergency vehicles entered at another location. This sounds like a silver lining until we realized that some of the night security now used this lane to park their own cars making it impassible for guys like me. Now, we are stuck again. After a moment, someone did notice us and came out to talk. After about 30 minutes, they were able to get someone to move the cars, but their directional advice was to get back on the parkway. Obviously, this was a no go, so as a last ditch effort we wound up calling the police station that just happened to be across the street. After discussing our dilemma with the officer, he assured us that Broadway would be our best and ONLY option to lead us out of The City.

The officer was correct and we got back on Broadway and drove up the road 45 minutes. We arrived at our very dark and cold campsite around 10:30PM. After a nearly 4 hour delay the ordeal was finally over, except for one last detail…the camp registration clerk was supposed to leave an electronic gate key in an envelope for us outside the office door. With no envelope in sight, we hoped for the best and drove up the road and found the camp entry, only to be greeted with a closed electronic gate arm. After sitting at the gate for a few minutes, I hopped out of the RV and tried to manually move the gate arm, but was unsuccessful. I was ready to just leave the RV there and sleep in front of the gate, but just as I was about to get back into the RV another camper just happened to pull up behind us and allowed us in using his gate key. To add insult to injury, the entrance the gate arm only stayed in the open position for a few seconds and as we passed through, it proceeded to smack the side of the RV not once, but twice.

We finally made it. I backed the RV into the site and called it a night. In the morning, I asked the registration clerk about the lack of an envelope with a key. Her response was just icing on the cake. She acted as if it were no big deal and shrugged her shoulders and said “Oh yeah, sorry about that.”

Additionally…if you can believe it, there is more to this story. If you want to know the details, I might discuss them with you in person.

#WashingtonDC #Maryland #Delaware #NewJersey #GeorgeWashingtonBridge