May 21, 2010: The Long Drive Home

Today was the end of my 2010 cross country trip. At the end of the day, I would be home. The car was not due until the next day (May 22nd), but I wanted to have time to unpack the car. It was due at 3:30pm, so I did not want to stay an extra day and take the chance of any kind of delay and then face a penalty by returning the car late.

I started out with the breakfast buffet at the Erie, PA motel. Since this was a truck stop motel, their free breakfast consisted of access to the restaurant's breakfast buffet, rather than the standard institutional cereal, waffles, near-rotten fruit, and unhealthy pastries whose taste did not justify the calories. The breakfast buffet was great. My plan was to have more than I normally would and try to avoid having to stop for lunch. Not only did I not want to waste the time, but I wanted to save money.

After having a great breakfast, I fueled up and began the long trip. The fastest method to get home would be to take I-90 for most of the way. But that also included about $14 in tolls. I instead took I-86. In Pennsylvania, I-86 is great. You know you've crossed into New York not by the welcome sign, but by the fact that the nice smooth road surface has ended and been replaced by numerous bumps and other problems.

The views along what is referred to as New York's "Southern Tier" are very nice. There are mountains and lush forests. It seemed odd being back in New York again after 46 days, and having been as far as the Pacific Coast about a month before.

I know this route well enough that I no longer needed the GPS to give me directions. This is my third time taking this route. I did this exact route going home from the 2009 Fall trip. I needed to follow I-86 until it dropped interstate status and went strictly by its other name of NY Route 17. Then in the Binghamton area I would briefly take I-81 (for less than a mile) to I-88. I-88 would take me northeast from the Southern Tier to New York's Capital District area. From I-88 I would briefly travel I-90 to get to I-87 (the Northway) to get home. However, I kept the GPS on for most of the way to get an accurate prediction of when I would get home.


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NY Route 17/I-86 briefly straddles the New York/Pennsylvania state lines. I got off there to buy gas. Even though PA has a higher gas tax, gas was cheaper than in NY based on what I had seen along the way. I was also getting a little hungry. The gas station had a Subway. I decided to have lunch even though I planned not to. This was my last Subway sandwich for the trip (and the last one I've had so far). Being that I was back in the Northeast, I was again able to obtain points on my Subway points card. It seems this generally works in the coastal states plus Nevada and Utah. It does not work in the Midwest at all.

I had gotten a much earlier start, plus this was spring rather than fall. When I got to I-88 in the Fall 2009 trip, things had begun to get dark. Today, I was in the daylight all the way through I-88.

As I left I-88 and got onto I-90, I was officially back in my home area, NY's Capital District. Once I got onto the Northway (I-87), it just felt strange to see all the familiar interstate signs. Thankfully, I came at just the right time to avoid the rush hour traffic for the most part.

When I got home, I noted the mileage on the car. I had put 5,033 miles on the previous car to get to San Francisco. On this car, from San Francisco to home, I had put 7,120 miles on the car. The total number of miles driven on this trip was 12,153 miles. I was amazed. Originally, I did not think I'd cross the 10,000 mile mark.

After getting home and having dinner, I had to begin the process of unloading the car. While I had packed the original car neatly, things were really out of order after so much travel. Also, I had not packed slowly and neatly when transferring from the car with the tire problem to the next car in San Francisco. It took quite a while to unpack.

Since I still had the rental car, I wanted to take it to Walmart to do a grocery order. I wanted to put the miles on that car while I still had it rather than using them on my own car. Of course, after seven hours of driving, I was absolutely exhausted. Still, I did it. I got back after 10:30pm. I definitely needed some sleep.