According to Google Maps, the distance from Boston to College Park, Maryland is 435 miles, which, at highway speeds (or perhaps just a shade over them) would take about 7 hours to cover. The return drive to Beverly is a little longer, 455 miles, but at similar speeds would take 7 and a half hours to cover. Of course, the problem is the assumption that you can drive at highway speeds during the entire trip.

This was an especially bad assumption this weekend, as our drives to and from College Park took between 9 and a half and 10 and a half hours.

I blame myself for the delay on the drive down, as given our departure time I should have known that 95 through New York on a late Friday afternoon was an invitation to gridlock. I remember passing the exit that would have taken us to the Tappan Zee Bridge and wondering if I was making a mistake. I did not have to wonder for too long. We entered New York state just at 5 pm, and didn't get on to the George Washington Bridge until after 7 pm.

I'll also assign some blame to AAA, whose Trip-Tik didn't seem to think this would be a problem. On the other hand, it's not like you enter a time for your trip, so perhaps that's a suggestion I should make. In any event, I don't know if the Tappan Zee would have saved us any time, but I can't imagine it would have cost us any more.

And for what it's worth, traffic was pretty bad from New Haven to about Newark, so it's not like this was a New York-only problem. I also encounted what might have been the most empatic stop-and-go traffic ever in New Jersey, as we'd be moving right along at highway speeds and then have to come to a complete halt in about 100 yards. Not good.

On the trip home, the Jersey Turnpike was busy from exit 5 on up, though it moved pretty well from exit 9 to the tolls by the Meadowlands... after which things jammed up nice and tight. It took us about 20 minutes to get from the tolls to the exit for the Vince (perhaps longer), a distance of about two miles. Things didn't really thin out in the time during our stop, but we were at least given good information about the local route being the best way to get back over the GWB. We could have easily added another hour to our trip if we stuck to the "express" route.

I did learn during this trip that I do get agitated pretty easily at driving in such delays, I think from a combination of losing time and not being able to actually drive. On the positive side, I do not then resort to horn honking, multiple lane changes, or driving in the breakdown lane. So I've not completely lost it.

As you can imagine, it was a tiring weekend, but a fun one.