Grasonville MD – Southeast MA
Monday, March 19, 2018
(~451 miles)

After a much better waffle at breakfast this morning, I got an earlier start on US-301 just after 07:00 in the chilly northern air. It was only supposed to get colder today as I moved north, so the heated gear was cranking. I exited after 40 miles or so on SR-313, looking for a community named Ireland Corner for the Melting Pot tour, but couldn’t locate a town limit sign to use and carried on north on SR-213.

Several quiet morning miles on this secondary route brought me to Chesapeake City, a quaint little village in the shadow of a high bridge crossing the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal. Winding my way through a few one-way streets and down to the canal brought me to a little museum (closed at this hour) and a replica of the 30′ tall Bethel Bridge Lighthouse, one of six or so navigation aids used along the canal in its heyday.

Proceeding from there, I crossed the canal on the high bridge into the northern half of Chesapeake City (which had apparently been split apart when the canal was built), and took MD-285 east on my way across the skinniest part of the Delmarva peninsula to New Castle DE on the banks of the Delaware River.

The New Castle Range Lights (Front and Rear) are just steel scaffolding structures and aren’t much to look at these days, but they are still considered “lighthouses” in the navigational sense. The original structures were much prettier to look upon. They are both located on private property, maybe 1/2 mile apart on land. Not much to see here, so I got my photos and got on my way.

It was back to mostly interstates now for the run through the gauntlet of NJ/NYC. I had timed it to avoid morning rush hour however, and it worked out well. I-295 to the NJ Turnpike, then a jog west through New Bruswick NJ by Rutgers University to catch I-287 northbound. Looks like the Tappan Zee Bridge over the Hudson is now defunct, with all traffic now moving over the parallel grasshopper-like Mario Cuomo Bridge. The name just doesn’t roll off the tongue the same way, does it?

I’d never exited in Tarrytown before, and my final lighthouse of the trip led me on a bit of a merry chase in circles around the streets. It appears that the entire shoreline area near the Tarrytown Lighthouse is currently under construction and a huge field of dirt separated the nearest roads I could find from the lighthouse, which I could see sticking up over the raised earthworks by the riverbank. Finally resigned that it was the best I would get, I snapped the photo and moved on.

I was basically home at this point, just a matter of doing the miles on I-84, Mass Pike, and I-495 to get there. However, as a final reminder that the trip ain’t over until the kick-stand’s down in the garage, I had a near-accident at the junction of I-684 and I-84, when a cager merging onto the highway decided to cut all the way over to the fast lane (where I was) to get around a large slowly moving highway dept. vehicle with a flashing arrow sign on the back.

My Stebel horn literally saved me today from being pushed off the road into the median, which was a down slope and would have ended really badly. I was laying onto the horn (which is pretty loud) when I saw the car coming over too fast, and saw the driver’s look of dumbfounded surprise when he finally noticed that his intended lane was already occupied and violently steered back to the right to avoid me.

I continued on, a bit shaken but steady enough to make it to Newtown for a planned fuel stop. I debated a quick lunch and warm-up at the Blue Colony Diner, but now just wanted to get home. One more warm-up stop at the Dunkin in Tolland and I pulled in to the driveway around 16:30, chilled to the bone, but to a warm welcome from wife and dog.

TRIP STATS:
Total miles: 2873
Lighthouses visited: 19
Melting Pot bonuses: 2
New states ridden: 2
Burns from heated gear: 1!