Looking to the Past, Preparing for the Future

I travel to New Jersey again next week. I have to mentally prepare for this ahead of time.

In thinking ahead to my upcoming travel, I have been recalling with both horror and amusement my first experience driving in the Garden State only a week ago.

What you should understand is that I recently moved to the town of my current employment from the state of Michigan, where driving on the highway meant going 80 mph and traffic laws seemed to be only loosely followed. I thought driving in Michigan prepared me to drive anywhere. I was wrong.

It was literally my first day of out of state travel for the new job, and I clutched the steering wheel of my rental car, the traffic as I approached the New Jersey border getting thicker. It had started to rain and I squinted through the dusk hoping to find my hotel with my new GPS (named Rhoda). I was a bit appalled as I drove on Route 17 to find that people actually drove on the shoulder of the road to bypass traffic without the blink of an eye!

Then I discovered that my hotel was located on the OTHER side of Route 17, meaning I had to get off at an off ramp, onto another highway, and then back onto Route 17 going in the opposite direction. I continued to clutch the steering wheel - starring more at the GPS than the actual road. I sailed onto Route 17 going in the right direction thinking, "Oh my goodness, I made it!" but to my dismay - another highway was merging with mine on the right. I needed to cross over these lanes to get to my hotel.

I made it safely to the parking lot before I realized - I have to go back into that madness if I want to get dinner.

I have come to the conclusion that people in New Jersey must be religious, in order to trust that when they get into their car, they expect to come out alive when they reach their destination.

The rest of the week, every time I arrived at a college fair or a school visit I felt the urge to jump out the car and yell "Land! Solid Land!" like the little girl in the movie the Pacifier who gets out of a minivan kissing the ground after her teenage sister drives recklessly on the road.

Surprisingly, after all of that, I find myself ready to conquer the roads of the Garden State again. Surely if I can drive in New Jersey, I can drive anywhere.

Safe Travels,
Alexandra