Yesterday (10/20/07) Linda and I drove to Rutgers to see Mandy and take her some school supplies--home baked cookies, bottled water and bracelets that she is selling in memory of her friend Sharon that died recently of cystic fibrosis.

Whenever we drive to Rutgers there are a few decision points for us as to which route to take.  We listen to WCBS 880 "traffic on the 8's" every ten minutes to try sand make our drive as traffic free as possible.  For instance, before we get to exit 15 in Norwalk, we make sure there is no bad traffic between Norwalk and the NY line on I95.  If there was, we could scoot over to the Merritt Parkway (15) at exit 15.

Assuming we are continuing on I95, we then need to decide if we are going to go over the George Washington Bridge to NJ or the Tappan Zee Bridge over the Hudson to the Garden State Parkway.  This decision needs to be made before exit 2 on I95 in order to jump on I287 to the Tappan Zee.  If we choose the GWB, then we need to decide whether to stay on I95 and take the Cross Bronx Expressway (which is usually filled with trucks) or take the back roads (Hutchinson Parkway to the Cross County Parkway to the Saw Mill Parkway to the Henry Hudson Parkway to the GWB.  These are all parkways and trucks are not allowed on them.  But they are winding roads and the overall distance is a bit longer than staying on I95--even thought it might be a little quicker.

If we cross the GWB then we stay on 95 to the NJ Turnpike and get off at exit 9.  If we take the Garden State, we hit the NJ Turnpike at exit 11 and only have to travel to exit 9.

Is all of this boring for you?  Coming home yesterday we took Mandy to the parking lot where her car was and used our GPS to get a bit of a new route back to the NJ Turnpike.

For lunch we visited Houlihans Restaurant.  Here is a picture of Linda and Mandy from there: