It Was So Cold, The Brass Monkeys Stayed Inside

It Was So Cold, The Brass Monkeys Stayed Inside

  

After fighting my way down the New York Turnpike (five inches of snow,) and the New Jersey Interstate 287 and 70 (three inches of snow,) I entered PA, and the snow just disappeared.  Not a drop of the frozen stuff ever touched the pristine roads of Pennsylvania.

I spent the first night of my dream trip in Chambersburg, PA.  If you haven’t been there don’t worry, I can tell you it’s easy to find.  Simply scan the roadside up ahead on I-81 and watch for the most garishly painted, brilliantly lit-up, Giant-K-Mart sized strip-joint you have every seen.  Take that exit.  Welcome to Chambersburg.

Actually, the town itself is rather quaint.  Deserted, but quaint.  And, for a town its size there was an extraordinary amount of traffic in and out of town headed toward I-81.  Chambersburg, you may recall, claims the dubious distinction of being taken TWICE by Confederate Soldiers during the Civil War.  In fact, General Lee spent the night in Chambersburg.  I figured stopping there would get me in the right frame of mind.  After all, my next group of states I would visit often hosted Lee.

The next morning it was cold, cold, cold.  And dark.  The kind of dark that can only occur on a cold winter morning.  Bone numbing cold.  I really did not believe the Alfa would start.  After all, I was numb, and I had spent the night in a warm house.  The Alfa had braved it out in the street.  I hunkered down behind the wheel, pressed down on the gas pedal, (I know, I know –now – there’s no pump) and hit the starter.  Wow.  Just like that.  Boom, and it’s running.  Must have been my magic touch.  Ah, when you’re good, you’re good.  Clutch in, shift and off we go: Day two has started.

I wanted to eat breakfast in Chambersburg, sort of paying my dues as it were, but there wasn’t anyplace open.  Guess they keep late hours.  So I headed out of town, swung past the strip-joint and zoomed onto I-81.

Upland Maryland holds no big fascination for me.  I lived in Annapolis for five years and on the Eastern Shore for two.  For me, if there’s no water around, there’s no nothing gonna happen.  West Virginia, however, is a whole other story.  It feels magical to me, and I just can’t go through any part without stopping.  So I hung on, delaying eating until I reached WV, then swung off the highway and tooled into Martinsburg.

Now, here’s an old town worthy of the name.  Beautiful homes, lovely streets enhanced with trees whose branches hover protectively over the roads.  Boy, if they only had water.  I stopped alongside a city construction truck and asked the guys where I might get a good meal.  They turned me around pointed-out the way and sent me to one of the best breakfast places I’ve had the good fortune to wander into.  The food was delicious, the portions very substantial, the prices right, and, to make a delightful experience better, the owners were Greek, and the place was chock-full of those wonderful Greek confectionery delights like baklava.  What a way to end a breakfast.

Although it was still chilly in West Virginia, the temperature hovered in the mid-40’s, which was warm enough for me to get the car washed.  The trip down had coated the Alfa with all sorts of material from sand through salt and had turned my Italian Racing-Red auto into a smeared-white convertible.  So I popped the car into the wash and had my second mishap.  My wife’s car (which used to be our car, but since we bought the Alfa has been increasingly referred to as “Her Car”,) like most of the newer autos, have automatic radio antennas that raise and lower as you switch the power on and off.  The A’s antenna, on the other hand, is manually extended, which means if you don’t push it down before the felt pads of the car wash get hold of it, you wind up with an antenna which sits 90-degress to your fender.  But at least the car was once again red and clean.  Gotta look at the bright side.

Once you leave Martinsburg, it’s a short ride down I-81 to Virginia and one of the most scenic roads you can drive on.  I-81 slides along the valley that nestles between the Appalachian Mountains on the west side and the Blue Ridge Mountains to the east. 
The 247 some-odd miles of the drive provided me with one spectacular scene after the other.  To add icing to the cake the temperatures had climbed up into the mid-50 degree range allowing me to shed my sweater and gloves.  Compared to where I’d been, it was summertime for me.  At Austinville, I-81 hooks up with I-77, which heads straight south to Charlotte, NC, my stopping point for the night.

I reached Charlotte at evening rush hour, and believe me there really is one.  Everyone lives in the suburbs and they all claw their way out at around five o’clock.  But that’s okay, I wasn’t going anywhere.  I was on my magic car ride and nothing could bother me.

That evening, sitting full-fed fat at my sister and brother-in-law’s well-laden table, I calculated my achievement thus far.  My driving time since I’d left Portland was somewhere around 30 hours.  I’d driven 1,038 miles in 23 hours giving me an average speed around 45 mph.  Not too shabby.  And now, the adventurous deep-south section of the trip was about to begin.

It is, you know, a car.

It is, you know, a car.

Those who have only known me for a short time rolled their eyes heavenward, while old-time friends only nodded.  Makes perfect sense for a grown man to buy an Alfa Romeo as a daily-use car in Maine.  One shouldn’t let the thought that pick-ups and SUV’s are the choice of wintertime transportation, nor let the historical snow levels, even in a coastal town like Portland, deter one from making such a logical choice.  Not for a moment.

But even the old-timers got a little round in the eyes when I mentioned that I was about to drive my newly acquired 1988 Alfa from Portland down to Saint Petersburg, Florida.  It was interesting to listen to the various reasons why doing so was not a good idea, although after all was said and done, the most frequently mentioned reasons boiled down to:

1)    It was an old car;

2)    It was a little thing;

3)    It couldn’t keep the pace required on today’s Interstate Highways;

4)    It was so small;

5)    It was an old car, and

6)    Did they really intend for such a small car to travel so far?

Of course, the arguments are valid.  It is an old car, and, it is small, but, as I said to my friends again and again, it is after all, a car.  And cars were made to get into and drive, wherever.  Wherever you wished.  And I wished to go down and visit my Mom for her birthday.  What better way to go, than in a fun automobile?

Now, a 1988 automobile is an old car, so I spent some time going over every inch of my new car.  I had one rule, if it looked worn, or if it had many miles on it, change it.  As it turned out, the car was in rather good shape and a few hundred bucks saw her with new points, plugs, oil and filter, trans and rear end topped, carbs cleaned and adjusted, brakes checked, adjusted and fluid topped, and all the gages and switches checked and lubed.

Although I planned on Interstate driving, I also planned on some secondary road exploring.  To that end, I decided to cut across Mass, via the turnpike, then head south on the Taconic State Parkway in New York, zip across PA, then arc southward through MD, WVA, VA and settle in somewhere around Charlotte, NC.  My plans were good.  It’s just that Old Man Winter finally decided to visit New England, on the day that I left.

By the time I got to Worcester, MA, there was three-inches of snow on the Mass turnpike.  Have you noticed how close to the ground Alfa’s are?  My manual says I have five-inches of clearance.  Maybe so, but there sure were funny sounds occurring directly under seat.  And, of course, MY seat was sitting on my seat, and there’s not much seat on these seats.

I must say that the windshield wipers did a great job keeping the windshield clear.  And the heater, kept me toasty and kept the windshield fog free.  In fact, let me say that during the entire trip, during which the temperature was quite often in the single or low double digits, I never had to wear anything more than a long-sleeved cotton shirt and a cotton sweater.  I was warm, warm, warm.

At the New York border, the snow was over the six-inch mark.  Fortunately, the road was plowed.  Unfortunately, that meant I was stuck in one lane.  If I tried to change lanes, I’d hit the residual snow line, and bounce off, then start fishtailing.  No fun.  So I hung out in the right lane, which definitely irked all the truckers.  To get even, they’d come up to within three inches of my tail then swing out and pass me.  Well, maybe they weren’t quite that close, but let me tell you, when all you can see in your mirror is the vertical lines of a Mack Truck’s grill, it sure feels like only three inches separates you.

Of course, in case no one has ever mentioned it, the Alfa is a SMALL car.  About three-quarters of a truck-tire small.  So when a trucked passed me, it was like taking a shower.  All I could see was the windshield.  And the slush flying through the air.  Isn’t driving an Alfa fun?