Pennsylvania

Road trip! Woohoo!

What? I should get to yell that at least once a year.

Our new school was offered a donation of books from a generous organization in the US, and all we had to do was go and pick it up. So two buddies and I took to the open road last week Friday.

We expected the load of books to be close to 1000 lbs, so we had to rent a suitable vehicle. Of course, when we got to the rental office at 6:30am to get our Ford Explorer, the agent indicated they "don't have one of those but this one will do" (points to one of those wannabe SUVs half the size). Yeah right... "U" is for useless. Good start to a trip. We were about to explain to the agent what reservations and customer service were all about, but fortunately for him a Dodge Durango pulled up, freshly returned. We hopped in and took off.

We would have gone for something even more suitable (Suburban!) except then you get only 200km free per day, after which you pay dearly. As we planned to drive over 1500km that wasn't really a choice. The Durango would turn out to be more than adequate, and it had unlimited kilometres.

Less than an hour to the border to New York. I maybe shouldn't have been driving because I don't tell tales well, whether true or otherwise.

Border guy with gun: "What's the purpose of your visit?"
Me: "We uh... hey guys, what are we doing again?"

Looking back, that turned out a whole lot better than it should have. Three young(ish) guys in a brand new SUV collaborating their way through a border crossing. What could go wrong?

It's about 700km to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We wanted to take the scenic route down, avoiding interstates. First stop, border-town gas station. We had no physical maps and wanted an idea of what the scenic route was. My all-too-Dutch companions found a useful road map and proceeded to take pictures of it while I hung back and pretended not to know them.

Stopped in some hick town for breakfast. Two of us were inclined to hit up a McD's or an Arby's but we agreed to embrace the local culture and try an old diner instead. We were waited on by a kindly soul with a five-o'clock shadow. The food was good and greasy, the coffee classically diner-esque. Having tipped our kindly waitress and paid our 'check', we hit the road once more.

Other than a few wrong turns (the GPS isn't actually magical), we made decent time. Until, that is, we decided to head right into downtown Philly instead of going to our actual destination outside the city. Well, on a Friday night, with various major league games happening, traffic was... shall we say... heavy. A couple extra hours inching along, albeit in reasonable comfort, and we were finally downtown.

Once downtown it wasn't all that busy traffic-wise, but the crazy one-ways and silly turning lanes and confusing exits made getting to an exact spot somewhat challenging. At one point, we took a turn a few dozen feet too early and found ourselves heading toward the river...

Hi New Jersey! Yeah, so if you've ever heard negative comments about New Jersey, well, I have to agree it doesn't scream "awesome". We made our way over a large bridge that dumped us into the next state. Suddenly, crappier streets, very little traffic, lousier cars... and to top it off, a $4 toll to get back across the river to civilization! Sigh, four bucks to say we've been in NJ. Yay?

We finally found a parking spot in downtown Philly and had a couple of hours to kill and/or see the sites. It was a little late so perhaps not much touristy was open. We were near Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was signed by Mr Hancock and all his friends. Without having much idea where anything else of note was located we just strolled around for a while and then found a place to eat.

After a so-so meal and good live music, we headed back to the car. Ooh, what's this on the windshield? Sigh, half an hour late = $36.

(Wow, I've noticed I took exactly one picture of downtown Philly and it's not even worth showing. I guess I'll have to return one day for a proper tour.)

Our wonderful hosts for our single night stay live just out of the city. We headed "home" for the night. The next morning was Saturday; the plan was to see one or two sights before heading north with our loot.

We chose Longwood Gardens, a botanical garden west of the city. This 1100-acre place was formerly a residence. Featured were a billion green things (I'm no botanist)...


...treehouses (well, really just wooden structures built around happily unscathed trees).


A convoluted length of brass tubing is available to listen to the sounds of the forest. RH is actually listening in one earpiece, but the second earpiece situated just to his left makes it appear as though a sound is about to travel the wrong way... nice pose man!


...a nice conservatory.


...complete with a couple of tools. (Finally an excuse to use the word 'tools'. Every single time I write about toll roads, I first mess up and write 'tool' instead of 'toll'. But I digress... behold the tools (a.k.a. flying dutchmen).


There's also a 10,010-pipe organ in the ballroom. (That's big, right?) We didn't get to hear it being played.


One can go in the back room and view a portion of the pipes. Shown here is one of the world's unlikeliest people thumbs-upping a pipe organ's guts. BF will no doubt appreciate my posting this...


A mysterious tower in the garden drew our attention, but it was closed for climbing. And if there was maiden atop yon tower, she failed to notice us and let down her hair up which we might clamber.


A well-camouflaged RH. Between the hat and the shirt, I don't know whether to call him Fidel or Waldo.


After a couple of leafy hours, we headed to where the donated goods were being stored. The payload was probably not even 700lbs, well under the Durango's rear-axle capacity (phew!). Homeward bound!

Americans like their toll roads. Okay, the ones who actually have to pay the tolls might not, but someone sure likes implementing them! To take the I-476 north we had to pay a toll. This starts by passing through the starting station and pretending to know what's going on. From variously labelled unmanned booth lanes, we picked one that was labelled "No tickets". We don't have tickets, right? Pretty obvious choice. Fast forward to the exit station. "Ticket please." Huh? Apparently "no tickets" means "I don't want a ticket", not "I don't have a ticket". More apparent is the fact that this happens a lot, since the agent performed a familiar (to him) routine of taking my driver's license number, having me sign a form, and informing me that the next time I'm so unprepared (not arriving with that elusive ticket) it will cost me an additional $32 fine and not just the $8.50 due now. All right sir, next time I take this highway... pffff!

Next stop: Scranton, PA. If you've never heard of Scranton, you may skip this paragraph. If you have, you'll understand its significance. We found Mifflin Ave and discovered the Pennsylvania Paper & Supply Co nearby. Too bad it was closed. Anyway, here's a picture for you Office fans.


That was it for sightseeing. While the others were probably busy bailing the ever-growing mounds of pistachio shells out of the car windows (or maybe it was when they were buying 'medium' smoothies (extra-large anywhere else in the world)), I punched the next destination into the GPS: the Ogdensburg, NY border crossing. Off we went!

Several hours later we approached the border and found ourselves confused by unfamiliar town and road labels. Hmm, time to pull over and assess. Turns out the fastest way to Ogdensburg was to take the interstate to a border crossing almost an hour west of Ogdensburg, cross into Canada there, and drive along the border on the Canadian side to Prescott, ON / Ogdensburg, NY. Stupid GPS. The reason for wanting the Ogdensburg border was that our letters/paperwork for the border people were addressed to certain border offices. We decided to try the 'wrong' crossing anyway.

Well, it wasn't a big deal in the end. We scared the CBSA agent with an air of preparedness and a folder full of official-looking papers. He let us through without even asking if we had anything to declare. (Dootey-doo...)

Arrived back in town and had a beer and an undeclared cigar to toast a successful mission.

Now the pile of books is on the poor librarian's plate.