Day 1 -- Travel from Merrimack, New Hampshire to Cherry Hill, Maryland
Thursday 6/28/2001
We got up around 3 o'clock in the morning to handle the final preparations. I had already hooked up the trailer to the truck last night. Lilly and the kids had loaded things into the truck that they needed for the trip. A few minutes after 4am we headed out on the road.
It was nice and cool outside. The kids quickly started to complain about it being a bit too cold inside the truck. That would change later on in the day. Both the laptop and the GPS were acting up and we had forgotten to pack a paper map this time. The GPS did not want to get a position and the laptop's mouse kept moving around, making it impossible to make any selections.
The new Banks exhaust system appears to help the truck. It is no longer falling behind on the hills. The engine temperature appears to be a bit lower too. We had to suffer through a number of traffic congestions on the way down. We took the Tappan Zee bridge over the Hudson. As soon as we go onto the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey I began wondering if we had made the right choice in terms of roads. There were no trucks or campers. The memory from many years back on a Connecticut parkway without the trailer fresh in our minds: we whacked down the CB antenna going under a very low bridge. I was hoping that we were not heading for something like that with the trailer this time... But after a while we saw a few buses and they were at least as tall as our trailer. Puh!
We only had a few traffic congestions along the way. The roads are not difficult here, but have some slight rolling hills. The engine temperature stayed around 210F-220F (99C-104C) and the fan clutch kicked in a few times. The transmission stayed mostly around 210F (99C) but climbed to 230F (110C) every now and then. Not very hot, in other words. But it is probably hard to compare this trip to the steep hills of Temple mountain or the White Mountains back in New Hampshire. Either way, it felt like the truck could handle it better without creating too much heat. The temperature outside was in the low to mid 90s (approx 34C). You could feel the heat outside by just touching the windshield of the car from the inside.
Stopped at rest area in New Jersey for late breakfast and stretching legs
We took a 1 hour rest and refuelled on one of our favorite rest-stops along the New Jersey Turnpike. We parked with the buses.
We continued and the roads were a bit more busy. We had to take
I-695 around Baltimore because of our propane gas for the trailer. It did not
take that long. We pulled into the campground,
Cherry Hill, around 2 o'clock and
were setup by 3 o'clock. The kids rushed down to the pool, while I checked my
emails. They had email/phone hookup down by the building next to the pool. I
gave Ramesh a quick call to let him know we'd arrived. He gave us instructions
to just drive down route 1 to his place. Map program suggested it would take 26
minutes but with evening traffic it took more like 45 minutes.
Ramesh had not moved since we met him the last time. But he'd gotten married to Renuka. We recall being invited to their wedding in Malaysia back in 1995 but for some reason we did not go. We could not recall why. Perhaps this was went Karl was just an infant? The kids jumped at a plate of crackers a cheese like a pack of wolves. The crumbs fell all over the place. What a mess! Meanwhile, the kids were crying: but I'm hungry. Makes you feel good as a parent, raising your kids as animals and not feeding them properly..
Taking an afternoon swim in the pool of Cherry Hill campground
It was nice to meet Ramesh again. We talked a bit about what had changed since we last met. Renuka is a medical doctor and works at a university hospital outside of Washington DC. She is very nice too. She has a more distinct British accent. We had chicken bbq:d on the grill in his little courtyard. Yum. We took a picture of the kids parked in the same couch as they were last time we were down to see him. Ramesh even pulled out some old pictures with Isabella and Erik. The years have really gone by fast.
Posing in Ramesh's couch
We tried to get Karl to pose as well... but it it had been a long day
I think Isabella and Erik liked meeting Ramesh again. We headed back to the campground again by about 9:30; we were very tired as we had gotten up at 3am this morning for the drive down here.
Renuka, Ramesh and Per in their Washington apartment