Roadtrip to NYC: Youngstown, OH to Hempstead, NY
421 miles from 7:30 or 8:00am to 4:00pm arriving at Hofstra University's campus parking lot in Long Island.
Day 6 (day 5 on the road) brings an early rise and a quick departure, because we're now trying to make the first day of orientation for Hofstra Law that starts this afternoon.
Pennsylvania is quickly entered, and the green rolling hills begin. It's a beautiful drive that we probably could have pushed harder on due to the almost-complete absence of state troopers, but as it was, we were pushing hard enough to make it on time and there were a fair amount of trucks on the road. Compared to the previous 3000 miles of driving, these last 400 miles were by far the prettiest. After reading through a book of 200 odd situations, a fiasco at the gas pump and lunch were a quick stop most of the way through the state, then Joel took the driver's seat and we burned through to New Jersey.
We're almost there!
Five days in the car and what do we see... "End I-80 Begin I-95 North". YAY!!!! George Washington Bridge, Cross Bronx Expressway, then Throgs Neck Bridge to Cross Island Pakrway, then Hempstead Turnpike, and we're there. We luck out and beat traffic, but it still takes an hour to get to Hofstra, plus $10.50 in tolls. I think we paid about that much to cross all of Indiana and Ohio! Hempstead Turnpike turns out to be a 30 minute slogfest through Long Island traffic, which really isn't all that bad, and we deposit ourselves on the Hofstra campus right at 4:00pm.
We wander and stumble around as things get sorted, find the law school, meet a bunch of Joel's fellow Hofstra Law class of 2010 classmates, raid the dinner line for food, and stand out as a pair of shirt-and-shorts wearning Californians among a crowd that's mostly dressed in business clothes or at least khakis and polos. That actually works wonders for introductions, although the revelation that the room they're using for the actual orientation itself seats only 92 people and they expect 92 or 93 people (out of 96 accepted) to show up means that I leave after partaking of the food and proceed to wander around Hempstead.
I have no map of Hempstead, the NYC map we have does not cover Nassau and Suffolk counties in any appreciable detail (which is where Hempstead is), and it'll be dark soon, so I don't want to wander too far. I've got the car keys, but with less than 3 hours to wander, plus the request from Joel that I do not take the car back to Manhattan to wander around, I decide just to stay local.
Needless to say I wander in the wrong direction, east from campus, where there's almost nothing to see after two blocks. Whoops.
After orientation, Joel's landlord comes by to lead us to his new home, and we commence filling up Joel's new (very small) room with all the crap we've dragged 3400 miles. Somehow we forget to eat a proper dinner-- although finding out how very closed all the shops are by late evening doesn't help either...
