2002-10-21 - 11:53 p.m.

Nightmare In New Jersey

Today I planned to do a repeat of what I did last week, except without the ghastly errors. I was going to drive down to Brooklyn in the evening, stay at a hotel, and then get to the Brooklyn Public Library bright and early in the morning. Such a simple plan, what could go wrong? Little did I know that I was about to stumble into one of the most unpleasant driving experiences of my life.

I got a bit of a later start than I would have liked because there was a chess meeting that I wanted to go to. Since the meeting was closer to the main highways than the Hamster Palace, I figured that I'd be saving a little time by heading straight out from the meeting, which was held at a restaurant/bakery.

After the meeting, one of the people there mentioned that a book I had been looking for was available at the big book stores in Colonie, which was on the way south. I stopped off at Borders, found the book, found two new CDs (one by Tom Petty, one by Mark Knopfler) and continued on my way. The detour couldn't have taken me more than 15 minutes.

Last week I got caught speeding, this week there would be none of that crap. My car has a very nice cruise control, so I decided to use that. It was actually a lot less stressful, but even going a couple miles an hour over the speed limit people were passing me like crazy.

So there I was, cruising down the darkened highway, by the light of the full moon. I was listening to two new CDs that were actually pretty good, and I had a cold bottle of water with me. Life was looking pretty fine.

About an hour out is when I noticed something that shook my sense of complacency. I noticed that I'd forgotten to bring my road atlas. I'd had it all packed up and ready to go - inside it were the Mapquest directions to the hotel, and the directions from the hotel to the Brooklyn Library. Crap! Can't I do anything without screwing up some part of it? I must have left it on the kitchen counter on the way out.

While this was annoying, it didn't look that serious - I could remember most of the directions, and I'd already been down there the week before.

I decided to go down a different way than last week - entering Manhattan via the George Washington Bridge, instead of taking the Tappan Zee over the Hudson and riding the Thruway to its end in Yonkers. It looked to be more direct, and had fewer tolls. It meant driving in Manhattan, but there was going to be chaotic driving no matter what route I took.

I was at the very end of the Palisades Parkway when I stopped at a gas station to see if they had a road atlas I could buy. To my delight they had a special road atlas of the five boroughs of New York. Even better! Things were looking up! However, no more than five minutes later I was going to get a terrible shock.

The Palisades Parkway ends at the George Washington Bridge. As I was approaching it I saw a flashing sign: EZPass Only on George Washington Bridge. Huh?

For those of you not familiar with it, EZPass is a little plastic box that you can adhere to you window, and it pays your tolls for you, via your credit card. I've been debating getting one since I've been doing so much driving recently. However this was something I'd never seen before - there were NO lanes that accepted cash!

I was stupefied - I couldn't believe my eyes. How the hell was I supposed to get onto Manhattan?? I fact I was so dumfounded that I actually approached the GW Bridge toll plaza to make sure that they hadn't been kidding - all the booths were flashing "EZPass only." Fuck!

So I pulled a U-Turn and headed back the way I came, got off at the first exit I saw, then got on the road going south again. I took the alternate exit to the GW bridge, and found myself dumped onto the streets of Fort Lee, NJ. This can't be right!

I spend over an hour, literally, going in circles, trying to figure out how to get into Manhattan. My new road atlas was no help because the maps that had the part of New Jersey I was in were too indistinct to make out. In my wanderings I even found ANOTHER entrance to the GW Bridge, but that seemed to be "all EZPASS" too.

I was starting to get tired, and I was losing my faith in my sense of direction. At one point I was trying to follow signs for the New Jersey Turnpike, but wound up on the Garden State Parkway instead, heading away from Manhattan, into central New Jersey.

At length I finally found Interstate 95, the New Jersey Turnpike. I decided that I'd enter Manhattan via the Holland Tunnel, since it was the southernmost entry point to the island. This was yet another mistake: it would have been much shorter and less expensive to take the Lincoln Tunnel.

The approach to the Holland Tunnel seemed to take forever, and the roads seemed weird and gothic. Everything was bathed in this orange lithium glow. I felt like I was in a Kafkaesque nightmare and I couldn't get out. I was not cheered to see that they seemed to be NOBODY else taking the route I was taking. Well, it was already past one in the morning. When I got to the toll plaza I found out why I was all by myself: the Holland Tunnel cost six dollars!

When I finally got in Manhattan, I suddenly felt that I had been transported to Beijing - the roads were a mess and all the signs on the buildings seemed to be in Chinese. I guess I'd stumbled into Chinatown. Everything looked deserted, adding to the eeriness.

I made my way down through Manhattan into Brooklyn, then promptly headed the wrong way on I-287. It took me a while to figure out I was going away from where I wanted to go. I don't want to even TRY to count all the wrong turns I made on this trip. I finally found the right turnoff and made my way to my hotel. It was at this point that I was glad I had my new road atlas - I could have never found the hotel without it, directions or no. When I finally got there it was well past 2 a.m. and I was nearly two hours later than I should have been. I was so tired I almost felt like crying.

To my frustration, the hotel parking lot seemed to be full, or all the slots open seemed to be too small to accommodate my CR-V. Finally I just said "screw it" and parked in something I'm pretty sure was not a parking space. It was going to make getting out tough for a couple of other cars, but it looked like they could get out with a little finagling.

I checked in and went to my room. Even though I was tired I was still amped up from my harrowing driving experience. It took me until 3:40 to get to sleep, and I wanted to be up in less than four hours.

I'd gone to the trouble of reserving a room at a Ramada Inn in Queens. It was pretty close to Brooklyn, and more than half the outrageous price of the hotel last week. Still, I have to ask myself - was it really worth $130 to have a place to sleep for four hours? If I do this again, I may just do all the driving in one day.