The Drive to Long Island

This past weekend, we headed down to Long Island with Lukey and Kenzie in tow to visit some of my family.  It is always a lot of fun or perhaps just "more amusing" traveling with Lukey and Kenzie but the drive down to Long Island was brutal and far too long this time!  We arrived completely spent, exhausted, and hungry.

What should have taken less than six hours of drive time, ended up taking us over ten hours.  We had detours due to washed out roads and bridges, we had construction traffic, but mostly, we had significant problems with traffic volume.  The traffic volume problems started the moment we entered Connecticut and we crawled all the way through Connecticut and onto Long Island.  There are simply far too many cars on the road today.  Clearly, the cost of gas is far, far too low.  

We eventually got into town just in time to get some pizza before all the restaurants closed.  We actually drove straight to a local pizzeria before checking into the hotel because the pizzeria was about to close.  It was really nice to get some New York pizza again...  and Lukey and Kenzie have been hooked on New York pizza since our trip with them to Manhattan this past Christmas.  

Everyone was in good spirits and excited when we started our drive as can be seen in this photo...

After we had some pizza and garlic knots, we eventually arrived at the hotel about 11 hours after we had departed our home...  a bit longer than the expected six hours.

We each unpacked, cleaned up and got ready for bed.  It was about midnight by the time we went to bed which, normally, wouldn't be a problem but we had to get up at 6am to catch an early train into Manhattan the next morning.  Some of us would have preferred a couple more hours of sleep (particularly Kenzie who wouldn't let us forget she only got six hours of sleep) but we did fine all day long.  

Realistically, I knew everyone else would be fine with just six hours of sleep but I was a bit concerned about my own health.  Wearing myself down always triggers exceptionally poor health.  I normally need to sleep closer to eight hours at night and 2-4 hours in the afternoon.  I would not be getting a nap on this day so I was stuck with trying to stay stable on just the six hours of sleep the previous night.  I tried to stay as pre-medicated and over-medicated as possible but I missed a dose of medications during the extra long drive and then I missed another dose of medications on the day we went into Manhattan.  I ended up surviving with no major problems so that is good.  I will, however, need the week to recover. 

Anyway, the hotel was nice.  Our suite was definitely big enough for all four of us.  This particular hotel has larger than average suites which is one of the reasons we always choose this hotel when visiting Long Island.  I do have to admit, however, that I'm always on the lookout for a better option.  When visiting family, this is a good location though.