Things I have Learned

1. Under certain lighting conditions, it is impossible to read anything on my dashboard. I knew this previously, but this trip has certainly reinforced the knowledge. While I am desperately trying to determine how fast I’m going or how much gasoline we have left, the road has the audacity to bend. This is usually followed by Carol’s eyes enlarging to saucer size and a slight ringing in my ears from the concurrent scream.

2. Corn is grown everywhere. I haven’t seen any corn since we passed Quebec City, but we certainly saw it between there and Montreal.

3. Overpasses in N.Y. are either: not labeled, labeled with a height or labeled with an actual height. The last one puzzled me. If an overpass is labeled 12’6’’ actual height, what was the height of the one I panicked over? While we were at Taughennock State Park, I met a retired trucker. He told me the overpass height in compensated for ice and snow build up, unless it says “actual height”. Consequently, a 12’6” overpass might actually be 13’6”.

4. Referring back to item 1, if you can’t read white mph numerals on a black field, you really can’t read smaller red kph numerals on a black field. What were they thinking? However, one mile equals one point six kilometers. So, if you take one tenth of the speed limit in kph and multiply it six, you have the speed in mph; i.e. 70 kph is 7X6 equals 42 mph. Or, you can program the GPS to read in kilometers and use it as a speedometer.

5. Two adults can share an RV dinette table with their computers while a 75 pound dog sleeps underneath.

6. $300 Canadian is $271.90 American, or at least it was yesterday.

7. You can live without TV or newspapers or Talk Radio. Although, I do confess to searching out the latter, I just miss my usual hosts.