This morning, a little before 9AM, we left our house in Ocean City, heading to Raleigh, North Carolina, and Father’s Day with our Son Billy, his wife Lori, and our two Grandchildren, Layla and Henry.  Having made this trip once before, for Layla’s birthday in April, we weren’t sure what kind of traffic we’d find on a Summer Saturday morning along Southbound I-95.  Everything was going fine, until we crossed into Maryland, and approached Baltimore.  Suddenly the GPS told us that there was “Severe Traffic Ahead”, and routed us off I-95.  Figuring we were just going  around Baltimore, we weren’t concerned, until the GPS said to follow US Route 301 for 99 miles to Interstate 95!

At first we were pissed that the GPS had routed us on this very congested road, surrounded by malls, fast food venues, and traffic lights….lots of traffic lights!  But then we got into less congested areas, and the road took on a kind of Route 66 existence.

Old motels from the 50s, and local restaurants replaced the fast food joints and Hampton Inns.  The road was rural, with only a light every once in a while, and we were taken back to what the east coast was like before Interstate 95. Reminded me of road trips I’d made to Miami Beach with my folks, before the interstate existed.  Heck, we even saw several restaurants that had obviously been Howard Johnson’s back in the day.  All in all, not a bad way to spend some time on the road, especially if I-95 was crawling along, bumper to bumper!

Before we were re-routed by the GPS, we’d seen something we’d never seen before.  A tractor without a trailer, pulling a car, like you’d see a motor home doing.  I mention this, because after the almost 100 miles on 301, when we were about to join I-95 again, there was the exact same vehicle coming off I-95, meaning that they’d taken the same amount of time to traverse this section on I-95, as we’d taken on 301! Only thing was, we’d stopped for lunch, and hit the bathroom too, so we had scenery, lunch, a bathroom break, and done it in the same time!  Thanks Ginger Peach  (our GPS’ given name…by us)!