Scene on the Road

After five weeks of two lane back roads, I was afraid I might be sounding too sanctimonious about avoiding Interstate highways. I realize sometimes you have to get someplace freeway-fast. So, I get off my high horse long enough to decide this week I'm taking the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

I begin at Exit 356 (old Exit #30) - the Delaware River Bridge connector to the New Jersey Turnpike. If I were to keep driving west to Ohio, I'd cover 357.6 miles and pay a $19.75 toll. In looking into tolls, I learned this bridge is the only one that charges a toll to enter South Jersey (you pay here BOTH ways - on the others the toll comes as you leave the state).

Because of its limited access, my plan is to spend time at each of the turnpike's three westbound rest stops, get off at Exit 286 (old #21, Reading) then drive back east hitting two more. Oh yeah, and I'm starting this at 3 am because I'm curious who's on the road then, or more importantly, who's gotten off the highway. Plus, the night might add some visual variety to my road trip photos.

Pulling into the North Neshaminy Service Plaza (milepost 351) it's mostly empty. The three cars parked in the lot appear to have sleeping drivers. Just outside the door, Rahsan Allen, left, and Brian Cost are on a smoke break. They make up two thirds of the third shift - 11 pm to 7 am - at the rest stop. Both say they prefer the night duty (it pays one dollar per hour more) and both were initially hired to work days at the Burger King. They were switched to the Travel Mart counter (Allen) and the Starbucks kiosk (Cost) when BK stopped being a 24 operation.

The rest area is only four miles from the Bensalem entrance, so I don't expect to see many people pulling in so soon. One who does is long haul trucker Bob Hooper of Roberta, Georgia. I'm shooting outside as he walks up and asking how far away Ft. Washington is, then goes inside to check the rest stop's "You Are Here" map. He left Raleigh, NC yesterday, in the afternoon, but bad cell phone reception kept him from calling his consignee for directions, until they'd already clocked out for the day. "I usually know where I'm going," he says. But this time, "it was Plan B: get close and figure it out when you get there."

Hooper drives "anything and everything - whatever fits in a dry box." That, he explains is what his truck is. There are also flat beds and reefers - refrigerated trucks. He and Worf, his 100 lb boxer (named after the Klingon character in Star Trek) travel some 140,000 miles per year. He sleeps well at night, not worried about being bothered. "(if) you try to do something to my truck and see him look DOWN at you...you think there's gotta be something easier to do." They drove through the night, avoiding rush hours in Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia.

The other third of the overnight shift is Tanya Krekmanova from Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria, who talks with Allen when it's slow. Her English is great.

A university student in Sofia, she's here for four months with the U.S. Department of State's Summer Work and Travel Program as a barista at the Starbucks.

She wants to travel to "New York, for sure," and to Niagara Falls before she returns home. "My cousin was there and she said it's so beautiful." So far she's been to Franklin Mills Mall and "the Old Town in Philadelphia." She'd also like to go to Las Vegas.

She's one of twenty-four International students working at the rest stop. The others come from Russia, Turkey and the Ukraine.

The sun is coming up as I merge back onto the freeway, joining mostly it appears, morning commuters. It's 23 miles to next Service Area - King of Prussia.

In the light of morning, I can now see the eastbound South Neshaminy Service Plaza right across the barriers on the other side of the turnpike. It is empty because it closed on June 30 for construction of a new E-ZPass-Only Bensalem exit. This side will be demolished as well in the next few years for construction of the long awaited interchange with I-95.

Looking at "freeway fast" travel, I'm OFF the two lanes and ON the Pennsylvania Turnpike for Week 6, making a tour of rest stops east of Harrisburg - both east and westbound.

I sometimes feel snobbish for stressing the journey - usually on back roads - over the destination, but I'm the first to admit If covering great distances in the least amount of time is your goal, you can't beat the interstate highway system. But they ARE boring. Well, at least not as visually interesting as the slower routes.

So as long as I'm on the freeway going fast, I decide to slow down as I visit a few of Pennsylvania's "multi-concept service plazas" (rest stops to you and me). As East Coast drivers, with all of our toll roads, we take our rest stops for granted. In most of the rest of the country easy-on, easy-off means vending machines. Ours have video games, clean and spacious restrooms, pay-phones, travelers maps, CNN on television, as well a smörgåsbord of eats. Some even have outdoor Farmers Markets.
The westbound Peter J. Camiel rest stop at mile post 304.8 - "46 miles to next Service Area" - offers Cinnabon, Brioche Doree, Roy Rogers, Sbarros, Starbucks, Hershey's Ice Cream, a gift Shop, plus an APlus convenience store at the Sunoco gas station.

Among the morning commuters stopping for coffee, that's where I meet Alice Gray sitting in the passenger seat of her King Ranch F-350 Ford pickup, attached to a 28 foot trailer. They stopped to walk Sparkie, and so husband Jim could take a little nap at the start of a three week cross country road trip. They planned to leave at 4am, but got a late start from home in Browns Mills, NJ. They're going to South Dakota's Black Hills, Yellowstone and Colorado before coming back via Branson and Nashville (besides the Great Outdoors, they like music).

As I run back to my car to retrieve my pen, Alice wakes Jim up. The couple "started with a tent in the mid-80's," he says. "Then we got a pop-up camper, a travel trailer, and now this. It's called a fifth wheel." Jim figures the next step, which he's in no hurry to take, would be an RV. With the trailer, they can leave it in the campground, and still take day trips with the pickup.

I'm on a different kind of road trip this week, driving really fast and pulling over not when and wherever I see something I want to photograph, but ONLY at official government-sanctioned sites. I'm visiting rest stops - both west and eastbound - on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

At the westbound Peter J. Camiel Service Plaza - milepost 304.8 - I get out of my car, and in the space next to me I see real cash money and valuables right out in the open on the front passenger seat. The sight jars me, like I've entered a parallel universe. Not that crime doesn't happen in the country, where I've heard people don't lock their houses and leave their cars running outside the Post Office. But I can't remember ever seeing a pile of broken automobile glass along the sidewalk or curb in rural America.

Checking my voice mail messages, I'm standing at a pay phone in the foyer of the eastbound Bowmansville Service Plaza - milepost 289.9 - when I hear a body slam hard into the glass door. My camera's right there, so I point and shoot. It's seventeen year old Katie Grantz racing her younger brother Jeff from their car.

"They've been stuck with me for hours," their mother Beth says. The three are on their way from New Castle, near Lake Erie, to a Christian retreat - camping on the beach - in Wildwood, NJ. A home-schooled junior, Katie is also visiting colleges along the way. Mom wants her someplace close. "I'm gonna follow you the rest of your life," she tells Katie, who gets in the last word: "I have different plans." All three are looking at the Starbucks menu board, before opting for a soft pretzel at another kiosk. That's also them pointing at the "You are Here" map - a "Travel Board InfoCenter" - at the top of this post.

I'm still at Bowmansville when two cars full of women get out to stretch their legs. They're re-arranging - and re-distributing - some of the refreshments in the back of Tina "Rosemary" Miller's SUV when I wander over. The scene just shouts "Road Trip" in capital letters. They even have a theme! That's Victoria Samson in the hat. They've been on the road about an hour, headed toward Cape May.

The group began when Sally Rhine, center, and Denise Shrander, second from left, started carpooling to work north of Harrisburg twenty years ago. They were joined by other co-workers and high school friends and relatives, and eventually started taking annual "girls only" vacations to the shore. Two more will be joining them tomorrow, and three are no-shows this year. Oh, the theme for this year's trip? Purses. Previous themes, still in evidence: sunglasses, tiaras, cup cozies, shoes and sunglasses.

In most of the rest of the county, commercial businesses like gas stations and restaurants are not permitted at rest areas. Our full-service rest stops were grandfathered in when Eisenhower created the Interstate highway system. The government's idea was to protect businesses in small towns that provided those services along the highway.

Sunrise (near Mid-County - Exit 20) and moon rise (at Valley Forge Plaza - Eastbound at milepost 324.5).