truck trip: day one

the trip almost started out with a whimper instead of a bang. i obviously stayed up pretty late, but i managed to get up and start getting ready (i hadn’t packed or anything). jack was giving me a ride to the airport, so i called him…no answer. i kept getting ready and called again…no answer. at this point, i was in that awkward time phase between the time it takes if someone drops you off and the time it takes if you have to park and ride a shuttle. i decided i’d better leave, and i might not make my flight anyway. as i was driving by jack’s, i called to let him know i couldn’t wait on him…and he answered. he said he was ready to go, so i stopped at his house and he took me. i arrived in time to check in, but too late to check luggage. but that didn’t matter, since i packed light. then i got to the terminal and i had to wait probably 30 minutes at least because they were running a bit behind. the flight itself was uneventful.
i arrived in new york city and jeff picked me up without any trouble. we drove down some major highway from la guardia to brooklyn, so i didn’t go through midtown or wall street or anything but i could see it off to my right. we stopped at the truck and jeff walked me through information about the truck, then we signed documents and traded tags and such. jeff took me for a short ride to let me see it in action, then he hopped in his pickup and i drove my new truck. we stopped on smith street so we could get photocopies of some of the documents. while walking around he asked if i wanted to eat, so i decided i wanted a slice of pizza. we ate at sal’s pizza, which he mentioned was the sal’s in do the right thing. which i’m pretty sure it was. then we went back to our pickups and took me to get some gas. i’m not sure i’ve ever done full service before, but i don’t think i had a choice. (i know in new jersey it’s a law — or at least used to be — that you can’t pump your own gas.) i asked jeff if he smoked cigars, which he didn’t, but i gave him a cojimar vanilla sugar tip anyway. i told him it was a “gateway cigar” since it’s sweet and tastes like vanilla. jeff then directed me to the road to get out of town. i took 287 to staten island over a bridge that cost $9 in toll. then i immediately got in a traffic jam. after 20 minutes or so of that, i got on my way. thus ends my short time in new york city. all told, about 2.5 hours.
at this point, my impressions of the truck were that it wasn’t as clean or as in good of shape as i’d expected. not that it is really bad or anything, but while it looks pretty good from 10 feet, when you get up closer to it you can see obvious spots that need to be painted. plus the “dings” and keying mentioned on ebay are more like someone scraped the back half plus of the driver’s side along something that dented scrape marks down the side. the interior is okay, but aspects of it definitely need some work as well. but it seemed to shift pretty well and had power, and it wasn’t doing anything obviously bad as far as power, handling, etc.
anyway, back to the trip. i hit i-95 and went north, then took i-80 west. after driving for some time i stopped at a gas station. i asked if they had maps, but i wasn’t sure what map i needed. i said “i don’t know where i am. i just flew into new york and bought this truck.” and the kid said “you’re in new jersey.” i figured out i was actually really close to the pennsylvania border, so the map for it included where i was. i bought a map and took some road to i-78, then down i-81 until i got to shippensburg. i didn’t really have much trouble getting to scott and kendra’s house, which is where sue and the potts kids were and where i was going to spend the night. all told, i drove around 250 miles between 5pm-ish and 10pm-ish.