The Open Road

Drove down to DC and back this weekend. From New Hampshire that's six states. We did the traditional thru New York City and down the Jersey Turnpike to the Delaware Memorial Bridge route. Except for New York, the road conditions are excellent. Vermont is resurfacing I91 again, laying fresh black asphalt on top of fresh black asphalt. Vermont still has some porkulus money to spend. Ignore those NPR pieces about how America's infrastructure is falling to pieces. The Interstates in the Northeast and Mid Atlantic are in fine shape.
New York was a mess. Some lanes on the George Washington bridge were closed and that backed up traffic on the Cross Bronx expressway clear back to Coop City. That cost us an hour of walking pace traffic jam. It was so bad we took the Tappan Zee bridge on the way back.
Someone is spending some bucks on mile markers. All the way down Vermont and across Massachusetts we have fresh new mile markers, marking every tenth of a mile. They are growing in size, this years growth of mile markers are 12 inch by 18 inch, nearly the size of a speed limit sign. They are planting them on US 302, a secondary road in the Northern kingdom. These are new, we didn't used to have them. Some nanny state agency is pushing them and I have know idea where the money is coming from.
Once we get down into New Jersey the truck traffic is HEAVY. Like maybe one fifth of the vehicles are trucks. Full of freight, going to customers. There must be some life left in the economy to keep all those trucks loaded. If all that freight went by rail the railroads would be rich beyond measure.
Americans don't drive American cars any more, at least not the 6 passenger V8 rear drive sedans and station wagons of yore. Mostly they drive dinky four door sedans painted gray and made in Japan. Some SUV's, some minivans, lotta pickup trucks, but the little gray econo boxes are the majority vehicle. My Mercury Grand Marquis handled the trip in comfort and style.