On the Road Again... 2/2/14

Well in true Shaw fashion, we are leaving at 1:00 pm on Sunday, Feb. 2, 2014 .  Lots of last minute packing to do, etc. plus the boys showed up at the last minute to do something together in New London.  

Here is the route we've taken so far:  Rt. 95S to exit 21, Tappen Zee Bridge/Rt. 287W, exit 14A, Garden State Pkwy, exit 129 onto the NJ Tpke. Light rain but nothing too major.  The roads became so much better when we crossed over from NY into NJ!  Governor did that right!  

A little excitement on the GS Pkwy...Steve decided to pull off for gas ($3.24/gal) and as we're following the signs for campers/buses and we're a little unsure of which way to go, I pipe up that I see some picnic tables with a bit of grass and I knew Pippin had to go.  We thought we could make the turn to get over to the grassy area but then we couldn't, so Steve started backing up a little but you can't back up when you're towing.  We're blocking the ramp of oncoming cars and Steve saw in the backup camera that the car is askew so he jumps out of the rig to go unhook the car and by now there's a bit of a line of folks who want to avail themselves of this rest stop. Steve struggled a bit to unhook the car because the tow bar was a little askew.  He finally got the car off, threw the tow bar onto some grass and backed the car away from the rig.  Then he jumped back in the rig to pull it forward so he could release the line of cars we had created.  Side note...nobody honked their horns at us!  Then we off-loaded my walker, me and Pippin and gingerly picked our way onto some wet soggy grass and Steve put her down...she dutifully sniffed around then turns around and runs right back to the rig, up the stairs and looks back at us as if to say, "Come on guys, can't you see it's getting dark and it's wet and dirty and kinda sketchy around here? Let's go!"

So we drove some more and then decided to find a motel so Steve could watch some of the Super Bowl...this is why we left today and not yesterday!  Found an exit that had several motels.  Holiday Inn was not pet friendly, Days Inn was pet friendly but charges $50 per pet, but Quality Inn was pet friendly but only charges $15.00 per pet.  We got a fully accessible room for $90.00 and they gave us a 10% discount being AARP members.  The room is designed for wheel chairs so there is plenty of room for my walker, especially in the bathroom!  Below you will see the best feature, a fold-down bath seat in the no-lip shower!  I would definitely stay at a Quality Inn again!