I got up around ten and unfortunately had to log in and do some work this morning as I am the primary on call for the office this weekend which didn’t work out as well as I had planned. But there wasn’t much to do this morning.
After working I showered and got ready to go to lunch with dad when he got back from teaching Sunday school down at Union Presbyterian Church in Leicester. We drove over to Geneseo and ate lunch at the Omega Grill. On the way over we remarked as to what a fine day it was turning out to be and what perfect driving weather Dominica and I were going to have on our way down to Newark this evening.
We got back from lunch and I had to log in again to the office and do the Sunday afternoon work which isn’t a lot but it does take a little while.
After work my afternoon was spent getting the Mazda PR5 loaded and ready to go back to Newark. We had a lot of stuff at dad’s house that we wanted to take back with us. Dad took apart a lamp / table combination piece of furniture that we have that we really like so that we could bring that down to Newark with us. It perfectly matches our Newark furniture set even though we had original purchased it for the office in Geneseo when we had the house on Hawthorn Circle.
There was a lot of stuff to go into the car. We are moving quite a load around in this trip. It is our first trip in a long time with the PR5 and it can carry many times as much as the BMW can.
At four thirty dad ran down to the York Deli (York Landing) and grabbed some cold subs for us for dinner which we ate just before I had to leave to go meet the Toccos in Henrietta to pick up Dominica from them. While dad was out I had to do some more work for the office but got it done just in time to eat with him when he returned.
After eating it was time to head out. At this point the weather was still looking okay. It was ten after five in the evening when I set out from Peoria.
I met the Toccos at the Henrietta exit from the New York State Thruway. I only beat them to the meeting point by about ten minutes. Just long enough to get the last bits of the car situated and to read a few pages in “The Crystal Shard”.
It was a little before six when Dominica and Oreo climbed into the Mazda and we headed south on Interstate 390 to head for home and the Toccos climbed back onto the Thruway to continue on towards Frankfort.
We made our first stop on the trip at the gas station that we always use on the south side of Dansville just off of the southern Dansville exit off the highway. We stocked up on drinks and snacks and topped off the fuel so that we wouldn’t have to worry about it later.
It was between Kanona and Corning on Interstate 390 when we started seeing some bad snow. We didn’t think too much of it but called dad to see what we should be expecting. It looked as though the southern route was clear while Interstate 86 / NY 17 was seeing a bit more snow. So we continued on our intended path down Interstate 99 / US 15 towards Mansfield and then to Williamsport, Pennsylvania. But even by Gang Mills, New York the weather was getting increasingly bad and by Mansfield, PA we were getting pretty concerned about the driving conditions.
The snow worsened and the road conditions deteriorated continuously all of the way from Kanona, New York until Tannersville, Pennsylvania. Once we crossed the Delaware Water Gap and came into New Jersey the snow turned back into rain and we were able to drive mostly normal again. A trip that normally takes just five hours ended up taking us eight and a half hours! Much of the trip was spent at no more than thirty miles an hour.
Luckily we had Sue Grafton’s “T is for Trespass” along with us and we managed to make it through quite a bit of the book during the trip.
It was about two in the morning when we finally pulled into Newark. We had to walk Oreo and it took two trips up to the apartment to unload the car. We were exhausted but unfortunately Oreo had gotten into something along the trip and he had to have a bath before being able to go to bed! What a night.