The Journey: New York, New York

New York, the big apple with Broadway shows, Empire state building, Harlem, Wall Street, and the 8 lane George Washington Bridge. Three or four miles before the George Washington Bridge we ran into a traffic jam. The smell of gasoline and diesel fumes from the slow crawl of cars mixed in stifling heat was overbearing. No one could go anywhere. People turned off their cars and stood or sat on their car’s hood watching the frozen stream of metal.
There are no bathrooms on controlled federal roads except at the exits. Some people had blankets and were lying in the grass on the side of the road drinking alcohol. People were yelling at other people, some cussed others passed a bottle between them. A few were peeing on the side of the road. It was a party to some, to others a pain in the butt. We had the CB on listening to the truckers. The chatted that filled the air was to watch out for the Mexican 500 that would start when the bridge lowered. The traffic started moving slowly, cars filled with Mexicans sped over highway embankments and dodged dangerously between cars. I don’t understand how there were no accidents.
We could see the Empire State Building outline through the smog. I asked Carol if she wanted to go into New York and see some sights. She was not interested in seeing any more of New York. She had seen more people in the traffic jam than she had ever seen in Springfield were enough people for one day. She said the only way she would see New York would be in a tank.
Stamford Connecticut, we stayed at the Stamford Inn, off 195. An older hotel, which in it’s hey day was a Holiday Inn catering. That night an assortment of characters filled the hotel. Highway travelers reflect the nature of America. They are from and going to every area of America. Regional differences of clothes, living, and thinking clash in hotels like the Stamford Inn. The local police visited the hotel twice.
One of Carol’s friends, in Springfield, had given us a contact name that was the owner of one of the local radio stations. Carol called him and talked about living and working in Stamford. He wasn’t very encouraging, but offered to help us.
I don’t know if it was the hotel setting, the constant buzz of traffic, the lack of encouragement, or our expectations that made up our minds we were not going to stay in Stamford. Whatever the reason we decided to leave and continue our search for a place stop and live.
We decided not to travel the main federal highways, but to meander on two-lane tree covered back roads.