On the first day of fall, time to recap the last few weeks which is my Summer Wrap-Up!
Up in the northeast in early September, where temperatures started dipping down into the 50’s at night time and a week later, I was looking to dodge a hurricane in the deep south. Ultimately both trips went well but not without a little personal (comical to some) inconvenience.
Shortly after Labor day, I agreed to do a driving job with a company. A familiar ride for me from past drives. Pick up a vehicle in Walpole MA (same location I picked one up back in May) and bring it down to the Richmond VA area (area I was also in during that same May timeframe).
On Sep 6th, I boarded a direct flight from my home airport, Atlanta up to Boston’s Logan Airport. Flight went well and I arrived in Boston around 1030am and had a near hour Uber ride to where the vehicle I was to deliver was located, Walpole MA. Landing on a sunny day, by the time I got to Walpole, I was looking at a light rain. No fun. Having permission to do a little detour and spend a night near my home town in western MA, I took no-toll roads west to the Springfield MA area. The roads ran parallel for the most part with I-90, which is a toll road for a good portion and also known as the Mass Turnpike. I visited with friends and ended up staying the night at my favorite hotel in the area, La Quinta of Springfield.
Following a good night, the morning of the 7th, I had a good late breakfast that the hotel offered and headed out for my next overnight destination, Mechanicsburg PA. I took I-91S out of Springfield and jumped on I-84W in the Hartford CT area. I followed I-84W through NY, all the way into the Scranton/Wilkes Barre area of PA. From there, I exited onto I-81S and followed it down the Harrisburg/Mechanicsburg area. Below is a map of that route. As a reminder, I took this route to best avoid any tolls.
The vehicle I was relocating , 2025 Chysler Pacifica (not the vehicle I drove) was loaded with features and had XM radio. It helped me keep up with the college football scores!
By 3pm that afternoon, I arrived in Mechanicsburg. I thought I would give this recently remodeled La Quinta a try. Great choice. Located in a private professional area. Not far from a Walmart shopping center (if needed) and plenty of dining areas. I checked out a couple of Mexican restaurants in the area and wasn’t all that impressed, so I opted for Wendy’s and called it an early night, while watching football.
The next day, Sunday the 8th, again following a good breakfast, I made it an early start as I wanted to finish my driving day early so I could watch some opening day NFL games Wow did that backfire quite a bit. My original destination was Doswell VA (just north of Richmond) . I had stayed in the area before. Doswell is home to Kings Dominion Amusement/Water park.
The drive was pretty simple. Taking state route 15S out of Mechanicsburg down to Frederick MD. Accessing I-270S down to the DC area. Taking 495/395S around the southwest side of Washington DC, to I-95S to Doswell VA area.
I arrived at my hotel early, just before 1pm. Unfortunately, the hotel clerk would not allow me to check in early so I scooted over to a nearby Mexican restaurant figuring I could have lunch and watch some football. Well I didn’t know that the restaurant didn’t have a cable package that would carry any “American” football games. There were no other places close by, so I had some chips, queso and soda and followed games on my phone. UUgh. Finally 230pm rolled around and I went back to my hotel. Where the real “fun” began.
I checked in and got to my room. The room itself was pretty much what I expected from an older style La Quinta. My problem was the hotel didn’t let their guests know that their cable was out and basically received less than 10% of the channels advertised. Of course those channels did not carry any NFL games. MORE UUUGH.
Well another hour later, after trying to find out if I could get out of my reservation, I was told I would have to wait until the following morning and discuss it with hotel management. Obviously I was not happy nor did I want to hang around in a hotel that had no TV reception worth a darn, so I left and headed down closer to Richmond. I ended up going into Richmond and staying at the Wingate Richmond Short Pump area. Great decision as I was treated well and the young lady receptionist allowed me to “check” the TV reception” before committing to a room.
Well I finally got a room, watched some football and a little later found a Mexican restaurant to check out. It was a little more fancy than what I prefer, so I made it a Checkers night and watched some Sunday night football back in the room.
The following Monday morning, the 9th, I had a quick breakfast at the hotel, went on to deliver the van to the company representative and caught an early flight back home to Atlanta.
Up to this point, I still had not resolved the hotel issues I had back at Kings Dominion..
I was home long enough to swap out a few things from my travel bag and was scheduled to be back on the road by 11th of Sep. I say scheduled as the trip was in jeopardy due to Hurricane Francine threatening the Texas/Louisiana coast.
Finally by the late afternoon of the 10th of September, it appeared “Francine” was not going to directly impact my trip, so the morning of the 11th, I boarded a flight heading to Little Rock!
The flight to Little Rock went well. I caught an Uber and by 11am Central time, I picked my next vehicle to move. An older model with low mileage, 2019 Dodge Durango. Sample model shown below but mine was the same color.
The drive from Little Rock to the Houston area was going to be another drive which I avoided tolls. The result was I had to drive a lot of backcountry, 2-lane roads. I started off on Interstate 30, but that was not for long. It would be hard to explain all the back roads I had to take so I will just post the map of the route I took. My route is the dark blue highlighted route.
Although the Hurricane was already coming ashore more in Louisiana, my drive was mostly spared by any extreme winds. I did experience a few real heavy showers and of course was delayed in a number of vehicle crash backups. Fortunately none of them I was involved!!!
I ended up staying on the west side of Houston and by the time I got there, the sun was breaking out and some fairly gentle winds.
The hotels I used, I had stayed in a few years back. Another La Quinta. Again, plenty of eating options in the immediate area. I found a Mexican place but yet again, a little too ritzy for my blood. It turned out to be “WHATABURGER” night!
On the morning of the 12th, I had a good hotel breakfast and completed another successful vehicle relocation/delivery. On this trip however, I was not able to catch an early flight back to Atlanta. Oh well.
That catches us up for now. I do have a busy next few weeks scheduled.
By the way, I was not able to resolve my hotel issue from the first trip, regarding the TV problems, in a successful manner. Needless to say they did not get a good referral from me as well as I reported them to the Wyndham Hotels Group.
Before we know it, it will be October and will be time to start scheduling some more drives. So don’t forget I am for hIre and don’t be afraid to share my business and website/blog with others!
Thanks!