I am spending the second night in my new room in New Jersey. A new home, a new chapter in my life.
Recounting the adventure in the past two days, it is an experience that I cannot easily forget. If anything, the cross state drive marks a new first in my life. 10 hours behind the steering wheel was no simple chore. It was a brain-numbing experience like no other. The meager three some hours of sleep I got the night before clearly did not help the situation. Dosed on energy drinks, I managed to remain half-wake and safely got myself to my home for the next four months in Cranbury, New Jersey.
Figure 1. Spent 10 hours in this baby. It’s been good.
Returning the rental car turned out to be an adventure all on its own. Although the drive is only twenty some miles, the time pressure made it more intense than the comparatively more leisurely paced 10-hour drive that I just did. The Garmin GPS which worked flawlessly in directing me across Ohio, Pennsylvania, and finally to the destination, seemed also have been impaired by the time-pressing affair. I watched the minutes going by, and there is no National Rental Car center in sight. To add on to the stress, I am running low on gas. The thought of having the car refueled on the rental company’s gas rate makes the whole ordeal all the more frustrating.
Although I know better than to value wealth over my personal well-being, I was also young enough to have a slight sense of invulnerability. So I took my chances and made some rather dangerous maneuvers and got the car horizontally across four lanes to a gas station. Ignoring all the honking from cars passing by to my best ability, I got out the car to refuel. This took another five some minutes, leaving me slightly less than ten minutes to find the National Rental Car center and return the car.
Thankfully, Garmin lived up to the challenge this time. I made it to the rental office two minutes to six. Breathing a sigh of relief, I began to reflect on the reckless adventure that I just went through. Then I think to myself, “I really can be quite crazy sometimes.”
Figure 2. My new home.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
