Having seen and done everything on our list, we opted to leave Acadia National Park and Maine a day early. Our next destination was near Richmond, Virginia, to visit Kay’s sister and brother-in-law. Too long to drive in one day, our objective was to make it past the city of New York before overnighting.

The car was repacked—throwing everything in one pile is considered repacking, isn’t it—water bottles and coffee re-filled, and we were on our way. Seal Harbor, our residence for the last three nights, is on the southern tip of Mount Desert Island, and getting back onto major highways requires an hour’s driving northwest, almost to Bangor, before heading east and then south.

We traveled from Maine through New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Massachusetts before reaching New York, New York, at 5 PM during RUSH HOUR. The GPS directed us right through the middle of downtown New York on Central Park Avenue, through the Bronx, across the George Washington Bridge, and into New Jersey.

While traffic was horrible, it was the cars and semis crowding into the exit lanes at the last minute, near the head of the line, that delayed almost everyone else (in elementary school, we called it “breaking into line”, and it was considered cheating).

The New Jersey Turnpike toll road was great, though heavily trafficked, and seemingly there were a dozen toll stations along the way. We exited the turnpike just before dark and overnighted in Cranbury, New Jersey.