I made the drive up successfully, at least for the part where you consider ``I left'' and ``I arrived without any injury and on the same day as my anticipated arrival.'' But what I had naively anticipated -- from simple consideration of the distances involved -- to be a roughly four-hour drive plus rest stops turned out to be closer to seven hours. Until this instance the longest day driving I've spent was only four hours and change, the central-New-Jersey-to-Troy-New-York distance, and even that I last drove four years and ten days ago. (I don't really keep such obsessive records of everything that happens in my life, but it's easy to remember when I finally moved out of the Capital District since that was also the day Fred Rogers passed away.) (No, I do not obsessively link every blasted event in my life to other events either.)
Driving took longer than it might have partly because I really didn't study my potential maps enough before setting out. If I had I'd have spotted that my father's detailed map information did omit street names at certain key turns. The reason he left those street names out, even though it frustrated me greatly, was that it all had the same route number, so I assume he figured that I wouldn't think going from a two-lane limited-access highway to a one-lane road through a small town was worthy of mention. So I spent a lot of time backtracking on that. Dad also helpfully included a few geographic clues like ``School Zone'' at one intersection. The trouble is that particular school zone still has the accompanying elevated traffic fines, but the school was shut down long ago and its site can only be located with difficulty by long-term residents like my aunt and uncle (see previous entry). So it would be a great geographic clue if I had been here fifteen years ago.
Anyway, driving wasn't inconvenient, and since I used my dad's car I even took advantage of his CD player to listen to the full Stan Freberg Presents The United States Of America. I bought this about a month and a half ago, but have been foiled up till now in finding time when I could listen uninterrupted to it at a normal volume. As my aunt and uncle have their (college freshman) son up through the end of this week I may try introducing him to my before-my-time comic tastes and see if the younger generation respects Paul Frees the way it should.
Trivia: From 1883 to 1915 the legality of standard time was challenged at least 15 times before state Supreme Courts. It was always upheld as legal. Source: Keeping Watch: A History of American Time, Michael O'Malley.
Currently Reading: Roman Britain and Early England, 55 BC - AD 871, Peter Hunter Blair.