Ending in Small Town Rhode Island

This morning Rae and I got up early to get a head start on our last day of the road trip. We departed Akron at 7am and drove more than half of the day through Pennsylvania. The drive through Pennsylvania may be long but it is beautiful. I cannot believe I forgot how pretty of a drive it was. It is lush, green, and mountainous. I would love to make that drive in the fall and see all of the different colors the forests would turn.

After getting through PA, the rest should have felt like a breeze...false. We ended up driving through the "garden state" part of New Jersey which was scenic, but once we crossed over into New York it turned a bit stressful. I have been home way too long, I have forgotten just how aggressive and plain rude drivers are up here. The culture up here in the northeast has fallen under and transformed into a complete lack of respect for authority and lack taking responsibility for personal actions. It's a vicious cycle. The speed limit is marked 45 mph, everyone drives 70+, what is a cop supposed to do? Pull everyone over? So then there is no reason to follow the law or even recognize the posted speed limit because you pretty much have to speed to keep up with the flow of traffic and the police can't really punish anyone for mild speeding, only if it is really ridiculous. Now, I am not ranting about this because of the speeding but just the lack of respect for the posted speed limit. Why have a speed limit at all if no one obeys it? When driving through Ohio, when there were additional signs saying "stictly enforced" underneath the speed limit sign, just about everyone drove the speed limit. The funny thing is we did not see a single patrol man but everyone respected the speed limit and drove the appropriote speed. It definitely has to do with culture. Is it something that can ever be changed? Or is it just how it is?

So after all of the stress and frustration driving through New York, we entered into Connecticut. No this time last year when I was driving up for the first time with my mom, CT was where I started panicking and wondering what I had gotten myself into. This year, just the nostalgia of that freshman feeling made me panic all over again. What did I get myself into? People here are so different than what I am used to. Should I have to harden myself to tolerate cold people? My life is completely different up here than at home. We have driven WAY too far to turn around now. To make it worse, traffic on I-95 was bad, not terrible, but it did delay our trip.

After crossing the Rhode Island border, somehow all of that anxiety subsided. We arrived in South County Rhode Island (Wakefield) as planned, right around dinner time. Tonight we are staying with some of Rae's old family friends in Wakefield, Mariam, Ben, and their two young children. I am so thankful for having a house to stay at outside of the city. It is nice to have a peaceful night here out in small town Rhode Island. The GPS took us through South Kingstown and the quaint neighborhoods, we rolled the windows down and enjoyed the warm breeze and scenery. After arriving we chatted and ate dinner all before 9:30pm, I was shocked, it felt like it was so much later. Since we got an early start this morning, we got here early, and now I have showered, blogged, and I am ready for bed before midnight. I need all the rest I can get because of a big day of moving into my apartment tomorrow.

Well this will be my last post on this blog for a while, maybe forever? I thought it was nice to start and end this blog in Rhode Island. You will be hearing from me in my mini-city as soon as I get settled in and I will have a whole new year of exciting adventures up here in my mini city of Providence, RI. Thanks for keeping up with my blog this summer, goodnight.