[s-cars] road trip

[Lee Levitt]

Just got back from a relatively quick roadtrip from Boston-Pittsburgh. About
1200 miles, Wed night - Friday night.

Had to take my mom to a family funeral in Pittsburgh, and we decided to
drive rather than fly. Hooray :)

Overall a great trip...new brakes worked great when a Honda cut off an 18
wheeler I was following. He locked up his rig, and since I had a reasonable
amount of room between us, it was just a moderate stop. With the old brakes
my foot would have been planted.

Spent most of the trip at 80-90...except 81 and 76 in PA...and of course 84
in CT in rush hour :(

I was really quite surprised at how fast people are driving these
days...most of the traffic was doing a solid 75. I saw a number of cops, but
didn't talk to any. :) PA state police definitely work harder to nail
speeders than others I've seen...they're much better and more inventive at
hiding and using instant-on radar. I think one CT cop used laser, but I'm
not sure...can't remember the tone. Fortunately he was reading traffic ahead
of me :)

The car ran beautifully...just lapped up the miles and was a delight. My mom
was nav, and she kinda got into listening to the chatter on the CB. Guess it
took her mind off the fact that her brother passed away on Wednesday.

She made a pretty good nav too!

CB helped a couple of times, but this trip the Valentine was the winner,
along with eternal vigilance. One major PITA is that a number of New England
states use roadsigns that set off the Valentine. I *think* this is an
emergency signal rather than simple radar, and probably can be turned off,
but haven't looked into it yet...

We took RT 80 into PA, and then 81 down to the PA turnpike. 81 and the
turnpike were kinda slow, so on the way back, we took 79 out of Pittsburgh
back up to 80, and then to 81 and up to 84. For anyone driving in this area,
I'd heartily recommend Route 80...a beautiful road, well maintained, little
traffic, great views, and very little enforcement. We made very good time on
this road! :)

Lee
'95.5 S6 avant
'96 A6 quattro avant